“If someone says ‘Give me one word of advice,’ I say ‘be fearless.’ And knowing without any shadow of a doubt that what they have to give – who they are – is totally unique and not shared by anybody else. And to believe in that uniqueness. It took me decades before I developed courage as an actor.”
—Patrick Stewart, A Candid Conversation (interview, with Ian McKellen), 2013
“Our house was small, and when you grow up with domestic violence in a confined space you learn to gauge, very precisely, the temperature of situations. I knew exactly when the shouting was done and a hand was about to be raised – I also knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face, a skill no child should ever have to learn. Curiously, I never felt fear for myself and he never struck me, an odd moral imposition that would not allow him to strike a child. The situation was barely tolerable: I witnessed terrible things, which I knew were wrong, but there was nowhere to go for help … Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”
—Patrick Stewart: the legacy of domestic violence, 2009
“Quite a few years ago, I did a movie – which unfortunately was never released – about a character who was in the early stages of dementia and Alzheimer’s and who knew it was happening and whose memory was already starting to go … I have twice in the past consulted the great neurologist Oliver Sacks about roles. So I asked the guys, ‘What do you think if we asked Dr. Sacks to come in and just watch a few scenes?’ And he did … And then we sat in a hot circle around the great man and asked him, ‘So how did it seem to you?’ And he said, ‘Well, I know these people very well. I see them every week in my consulting room, in my clinic, in hospital beds. There’s no mystery here. This confusion, this misidentity, this delusion – all these things are present.’”
—Patrick Stewart, Smithsonian Magazine, 2014
“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because they will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived. After all … we’re only mortal.”
—Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek Generations (1994)
He had an amazing run and we were truly lucky to be alive at the same time as him, but the world is still a slightly darker place without him.
Goodbye Sir Patrick.

—emily duchaine
Flommist Emily Duchaine lives in the Pacific Northwest. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and listen to the Talking Heads. She pretends to be a professional businesswoman most days. Copyright © 2026 Emily Duchaine. Images: © 1994 Al Hirschfeld; Erik Carter for El Lay Times, 2023.
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