QI Quotations

QI, standing for Quite Interesting, is a comedy panel game shown on BBC Two and BBC Four and hosted by Stephen Fry, with permanent panellist Alan Davies.

Episode A.01

[On the subject of Adam and Eve]

Stephen Fry: But perhaps, you know, we should believe in Adam and Eve. Geneticists have established that every woman in the world shares a single female ancestor who lived a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Scientists actually call her "Eve", and every man shares a single male ancestor called "Adam". It's also been established, however, that Adam was born eighty thousand years after Eve. So the world before him was one of heavy to industrial-strength lesbianism, one assumes.

[After a question concerning Burmese etiquette]

Stephen Fry: While double-checking this … on the Internet, we came up with the extraordinary information that it's considered polite to express joy by eating snow and to send unwanted guests away by biting their leg, and normal behaviour to wipe your mouth on the sofa. This is actually true, the researchers were writing this down with great excitement about Burma, only to discover in the end that Burma turned out to be the name of a poodle belonging to the author of the website.

Episode A.02

Stephen Fry: Where is ninety percent of the universe?

Jeremy Hardy: Ikea.

Jeremy Hardy: You're basing all this on what Stephen Hawking says, and the fact is, he's subject to interference from minicabs.

Episode A.03

Stephen Fry: Holmes was retired by this point, and was keeping bees on the Sussex Downs.

Alan Davies: Against their will?

Stephen Fry: What begins with A, has six Cs, and no Bs?

Clive Anderson: Is it the Welsh alphabet?

Episode A.04

Stephen Fry: What is the most boring place in Britain?

Jo Brand: Is it the Big Brother House?

Alan Davies: Charlton Heston played Michelangelo?

Stephen Fry: Yes, you know, and—

Alan Davies: The effete Italian homosexual?

Stephen Fry: Yes, that's the one, he was not effete—

Alan Davies: Played by the president of the gun club?

Stephen Fry: He was an athletic Italian homosexual … He may well have preferred man-on-man action, that doesn't mean he was Julian Clary! He was butch, like me!

Episode A.05

Stephen Fry: Welcome to QI, the closest modern equivalent to Lions versus Christians.

Stephen Fry: How do otters kill crocodiles?

Rob Brydon: Softly with their songs.

Episode A.06

[Danny Baker has related a theory that states if a person can lick their own elbow, then they will be immortal.]

Stephen Fry: But isn't that how socialism was invented, that someone said, "Come, let us lick each other's elbows"?

Danny Baker: The fourth largest navy in the world, if one goes by boats alone? Disney. Disney has the fourth largest flotilla in the world.

Stephen Fry: Good God. They'll be making films next!

Episode A.07

Jackie Clune: I have an Australian girlfriend who has two vaginas. She went to have a smear test and the doctor said, "Well, I've got some good news and some bad news. You've got some precancerous cells, but they're only in one of your vaginas." She says, "Oh, I've been saving the other one for that special man."

Jackie Clune: It is actually possible for the ball sack to be stretched beyond recognition.

Jimmy Carr: By a woman scorned?

Episode A.08

[Randomly, during a question as to whether banana plants are trees]

Sean Lock: They walk.

Stephen Fry: I'm sorry?

Sean Lock: Banana plants, whatever they're called, walk.

Stephen Fry: Nurse, nurse, he's out of bed again.

Stephen Fry: If a lion mates with a tiger, you get a …?

Alan Davies: Scandal.

Episode A.09

Jo Brand: Can I just say something that's very strange? Because there's some German chewing gum called Spunk, and, um, you do have to be careful you don't swallow it—but in fact, I actually talked about that chewing gum on Clive James's show with you [pointing at Stephen] and Princess Diana! Do you remember? Seriously!

Alan Davies: [wearily] That was a dream. You've got to sort these out.

Stephen Fry: Who are the Lords of Shouting?

Jo Brand, Alan Davies: [hitting their buzzers] WE ARE!

Episode A.10

[Discussing the airport luggage codes that would cause you to have MAD BAD FAT SAD OLD GIT on your suitcase]

Stephen Fry: … which means they would in fact have recently visited Madrid, which is "MAD" … Bossy-er City, Louisiana …

Rich Hall: Oh!

Stephen Fry: … which is "BAD"—you're from Louisiana, aren't you?

Rich Hall: It's called Bossier City. [He pronounces it "Bojer".]

Stephen Fry: Bossier! I beg its appalling and insignificant pardon.

Peter Serafinowicz: I never saw American History X, because I didn't see any of the first nine.

Episode A.11

[Discussing the possibility of receiving xenotransplanted organs from pigs]

Linda Smith: Now what are the chances of a reckless young pig, goes out and gets killed in a motorcycle accident? They probably don't even carry donor cards!

Stephen Fry: It's in the Bible …

Alan Davies: I haven't read it!

Stephen Fry: You should—it's hilarious.

Episode A.12: Christmas Special

Stephen Fry: I'll give you an extra two points if you can tell me the longest fence in the world.

Phill Jupitus: The Great Fence of China!

Alan Davies: It's to keep people off the Great Wall.

[When asked which was the odd one out from London, Paris, Poland and Banana, all places on Christmas Island …]

Stephen Fry: The answer is that none of them are the odd one out.

Phill Jupitus: What kind of hellish quiz is this? "Which one's the odd one out? None of them! Bahahaaa! Bahahaaa! …"

Stephen Fry: Is that meant to be me? [Phill was impersonating Stephen's braying laugh in his role in Blackadder Goes Forth as General Melchett.]

Phill Jupitus: That's you!

Stephen Fry: Oh, bugger you! I don't sound like that—bahahaaa, bahahaaa …

Episode B.01

Stephen Fry: Beetle-fanciers, as you probably know, are called—

Bill Bailey: Coleopterists.

Stephen Fry: Very good! Coleopterists. I'll give you five points for that.

Alan Davies: Press him on how the hell he knows that.

Bill Bailey: Well, when I was a child, I—

Stephen Fry: In Alan's world, knowing something is a kind of freakish, weird thing.

Bill Bailey: Welcome to my world of knowing! The wonderful world of looking up things in books!

Stephen Fry: [discussing rainbows] In Estonia they believe that if you point at a rainbow, your finger will fall off.

Alan Davies: Oh, for God's sake.

Stephen Fry: I know.

Alan Davies: Estonians aren't stupid people, are they?

Stephen Fry: They're not.

Sean Lock: [holding up his fists] They're very stumpy, though.

Episode B.02

Stephen Fry: [about woodpeckers' tongues] How does it fit into its mouth, you may wonder? Well, it has to wrap it round its brain and the back of its eye sockets. Funnily enough, woodpeckers are very popular on creationist websites, because they argue that this is such an extraordinary creature designed so fit for its purpose, and so on, that only a designer could have made it, it couldn't have evolved. Apart from everything else, when it moves, sometimes up to fifteen or sixteen times a second it beats the wood to make a hole, which is incredibly fast and generates immense forces—two hundred and fifty times more forces than an astronaut is subjected to. It's a thousand Gs. And it has these extraordinary kind of little muscles and cartilages around its brain to stop it from shattering. [suddenly laughs] If the pecker's got wood, why go for tongue, you may argue! Um … [giggles as everyone stares at him] … but it is pretty astonishing …

Jo Brand: Could we maybe have an offshoot of this program called Quite Unnecessary?

Jo Brand: When I was a teenager, someone I knew gave their dog LSD …

Stephen Fry: Oh, my Lord!

Jo Brand: … It went to Glastonbury.

Episode B.03

["What goes 'woof woof boom'?"]

Rich Hall: A terrierist!

Alan Davies: Eight hundred Americans die in a McDonald's every year.

Rich Hall: Just one? Best to avoid that one...

Episode B.04

Stephen Fry: A friend of mine was talking about her aunt, who was at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and she was going to have a cataract operation or a corneal graft or one of those things, and the chap came in, the consultant, and said, "Now, Mrs. Alton," he said, "I'm sure you've heard, we're going to cut out that nasty old lens, that cloudy old lens, and we're going to sew in a nice, bright, fresh new one. It's a very simple operation, it only takes a few hours, and then you'll be out and you'll be seeing beautifully." He said, "The only trouble is, I'm afraid we don't have any donor eyes in at the moment." And he looked out the window and said, "But it's raining, so it shouldn't be too long …"

Jeremy Clarkson: You always called your pets, didn't you, "Gilbert and Sullivan" or "Bubble and Squeak," and you always ended up, after a road accident, with Gilbert and Squeak.

Episode B.05

Stephen Fry: What has large teeth and only one facial expression?

Bill Bailey: Janet Street-Porter.

[Forfeit klaxon sounds]

[On the word "hello", as opposed to "hullo"]

Stephen Fry: It just meant an expression of surprise—"Hullo, what have we got here?" "Hullo, what's this?" And we still use it in that sense.

Bill Bailey: Do we?

Stephen Fry: … Don't we, Bill?

Bill Bailey: Yes, when we live our lives like 1950s detective films, yes. I often go to my fridge, "Hullo, we're out of milk. I say, mother, where's the milk?"

Stephen Fry: You beast, you beast, you utter, utter, beast.

Episode B.06

Bill Bailey: How many amoebas does it takes to change a lightbulb? One. No, two. No, four. No, eight …

Stephen Fry: They are homophones. They do sound the same … and they hate gay people.

Episode B.07

Stephen Fry: Do you know what "biscuit" means? What its derivation is? "Bis", meaning…

Alan Davies: Eat, chew, bit …

Stephen Fry: … twice …

Alan Davies: … bite …

Stephen Fry: … twice …

Alan Davies: … bite, sweet, hard, coffee cup.

Stephen Fry: …twice. [laughs] "Sweet, hard, coffee cup"?

Alan Davies: Cup. Coffee cup accompaniment.

Arthur Smith: Here's a quite interesting fact: as we know, at the end of a marvellous performance, when we see a live show, and you think it's fabulous and you want more, you shout, "Encore" …

Stephen Fry: Yes …

Arthur Smith: Do you know what the French shout?

Stephen Fry: "Bis"?

Arthur Smith: Oh yeah, you do know.

Episode B.08

Stephen Fry: Honeybees have evolved a complex language to tell each other where the best nectar is, using the sun as a reference point. Amazingly, they can also do this on overcast days and at night by calculating the position of the sun on the other side of the world. This means they can actually learn and store information despite the—

Alan Davies: Has it occurred to you that they may not be using the sun? That whoever has worked that out is wrong? He's now said, "Even if you can't see it or it's on the other side of the world, they still use it." And these bees are thinking, "No, we don't! We just remember where we live!" Why is it so remarkable that they know where they live?

Stephen Fry: … Well, because they have only 950,000 neurons, as opposed to our 10,000,000,000 neurons in our brains.

Alan Davies: But they've only got one thing to remember—where they live.

[Discussing the potential benefits of time travel, such as witnessing historic moments or seeing yourself at a younger age]

Rich Hall: I had a rolled-up ball of socks. And a hamper all the way across the room. And I just went like that … [imitates a casual throw] … right? Hits the wall, bounces off the ceiling, off this wall, back across that wall, right into the hamper. From, like, forty feet away. I would go back and watch that again.

Episode B.09

Stephen Fry: If I've got a mothball in this hand and a mothball in that hand, what have I got?

Alan Davies: Two mothballs?

Stephen Fry: No, a rather excited moth.

Stephen Fry: In Britain in 1994, you might be interested to know, there were an astonishing range of accidents reported by the, erm … [deep breath] … Trade and Industries Consumer Safety Units Home Accidents Surveillance History Report. Eight people in the UK in '94 were injured by placemats. Thirteen sustained cruet injuries. Five were wounded by dustpans. Eight suffered as a result of a breadbin accident. Five were hurt by sieves. Fourteen fell foul of a serving trolley. Seventeen were treated for injuries caused by a draft excluder. Four hundred and seventy-six people were injured while on the lavatory … there you are. Underwear hurt eleven people.

Alan Davies: How many of those people were drunk?

Stephen Fry: Well, exactly.

Episode B.10

Stephen Fry: What is bottomry?

Clive Anderson: It's the opposite of topiary.

Stephen Fry: What is the commonest material in the world?

Clive Anderson: Jim Davidson's.

Episode B.11

Sean Lock: The huntsman spider is the only spider with lungs.

Alan Davies: So you can get it a birthday cake with a candle on.

[On the inventor of the Hokey Cokey]

Stephen Fry: He died in 1996; what happened at his funeral?

Alan Davies: Oh, it was terrible, they couldn't get him into his coffin.

Stephen Fry: Why was that?

Alan Davies: Well, they put the left leg in … Then the trouble started.

Episode B.12

Alan Davies: Which way does water go down the plug-hole in the Northern Hemisphere?

Stephen Fry: Any way you want it to. You can push to go one way or the other, I've tried it.

[Alan shuffles papers.]

Alan Davies: [sighs disappointedly] … Yes, that's true.

Phill Jupitus: "Stephen, what are you doing in that bathroom?" [as Stephen] "I'm pushing it to go one way, I'm pushing it to go the other, I'm the master … of the bathroom"!

Alan Davies: What would your super power be of choice?

Stephen Fry: Invisibility.

Alan Davies: Really?

Stephen Fry: Yeah, I think. Ah, it'd be great. What would you like?

Alan Davies: I would like to have no bodily smell.

Episode C.01

Rich Hall: For five million pounds, I'd want a map that showed me looking at the map I'd just bought.

Stephen Fry: What is a taffy pull?

Rob Brydon: Is this another dig at my forefathers?

Stephen Fry: You've got four fathers? The Welsh are weird.

Episode C.02

Doon Mackichan: I'd quite like to be, sort of … a minute … old. After the smack and everything's washed off, you're straight on the tit, you've got entertainment, you've got sleep and you can cry all the time without anyone thinking you're weird.

[Guessing the contents of the Queen's handbag]

Doon Mackichan: The Little Book of Calm … and mace spray.

Episode C.03

[Rory has been displaying his knowledge of the periodic table.]

Rory McGrath: Selenium is 34, arsenic is 33.

Stephen Fry: Very good. Isn't he good? They should really put railings around you and have children come and stare at you.

[About Mr. Chicken, the last private resident of 10 Downing Street]

Stephen Fry: Sadly, nothing else is known of Mr. Chicken.

Jimmy Carr: He was a philatelist, and he worked in a bank. And he used to sail. So there's three facts, so I should get some points for those. Little-known facts, but true.

Rory McGrath: I think he also played the tenor banjo.

Sean Lock: He had eleven knuckles!

Alan Davies: And, in fact, was actually a chicken.

Episode C.04

[Jeremy Clarkson holds up a sign saying "I like Stephen".]

Stephen Fry: It's like having your own little performing monkeys.

Stephen Fry: In 1900 there was a sport where Britain won a gold medal, in which the only other country that competed was France. Can you imagine what that might have been?

John Sessions: Arrogance?

Episode C.05

Stephen Fry: What do you get when you cross a camel with a leopard?

Jo Brand: Is it a fireside rug you can have a good hump on?

Sean Lock: You get sacked from the zoo?

[On how the ancient armies caught elephants]

Rich Hall: Well, the truth of the matter is many of these elephants volunteered. They came from small towns, there was no future, no … no circus coming through town …

Episode C.06

Stephen Fry: So, the question is, how does the U.S. government look after its sequoia groves?

Bill Bailey: Er … lions … and tigers are let loose to roam the surrounding areas …

Alan Davies: Do they try to win the hearts and minds of the sequoia?

Stephen Fry: Why shouldn't I strip Alan naked and cover him in gold paint?

Phill Jupitus: You win your Oscar properly like everybody else!

Episode C.07

Sean Lock: I got the worst Christmas present ever, ever in my life. My sister gave me a "Grow Your Own Loofah" kit.

Stephen Fry: God bless her!

Sean Lock: It was a clay pot, a bag of earth and five seeds. And I think the clay pot hit her hardest.

Jeremy Clarkson: D'you know what I had for my starter when I had the whale?

Stephen Fry: With grated puffin?

Jeremy Clarkson: I had a seal flipper, and it looked exactly like a marigold glove filled with wallpaper paste. And it sat and you thought, "Ooh …!" And it tasted exactly like licking a hot Turkish urinal.

Sean Lock: I'm very concerned that you used the word "exactly" …

Episode C.08

[On fortune cookies]

Phill Jupitus: I wish they'd be a bit more honest—I mean, snap, "With the amount of MSG you've just had, a massive coronary is on the way"!

[After Alan has related a tale of him being a member of the pub quiz team]

Phill Jupitus: Wouldn't it be great if you walked into a pub with him, though … [points at Stephen] … with Fry on your team? "Yeah, this is Barry from down the road. Yeah, he does look like him." And Fry would be there having to fake it in the pub—"Oh, blimey!"

Bill Bailey: Giving it away by swearing in Latin!

Episode C.09

Bill Bailey: I saw a goat up a tree in Morocco. They go right up the top! I couldn't believe it, I thought it was somebody in the pub having me on, but no …

Stephen Fry: And they go into the tree, not a goathanger?

Stephen Fry: What does a pair of pygmy chimpanzees do when they see a box?

Helen Atkinson-Wood: Wear children's clothes and have a tea party.

Episode C.10

[On opening champagne bottles the correct way]

John Sessions: I was always taught to do that. You actually twist it …

Stephen Fry: Yeah, twist, exactly. That's it.

Mark Steel: Where do you get taught these things?

Stephen Fry: Well, where did you go to school, Mark Steel?

Mark Steel: I went to Swanley Comprehensive, and that was every Tuesday morning we did Double Champagne Opening!

Stephen Fry: This was at a party given by their graces the Duke and Duchess of Westminster—

[Whistles go off and the words "Luvvie Alarm" flash on the screen.]

Stephen Fry: Oh, no! Come on! No! No! Fair dos! No!

Clive Anderson: The richest man in the country apart from Roman Abramovich.

Stephen Fry: I never penetrated his intimate circle, but …

Episode C.11

[On the subject of cockfighting]

Stephen Fry: [reading from a card] It says here a good cocker would think nothing of cleaning his cock's wounded head by sticking it in his mouth and sucking it clean.

[The audience laughs and Clive murmurs in agreement.]

Phill Jupitus: You're watching QI for the Straight Guy!

[On the original story of Cinderella]

Stephen Fry: The original stories were quite gruesome. When the ugly sisters tried to slip into the slipper, they cut off their toes and their bunions to try and squeeze in, and the slippers filled with blood.

Jo Brand: They probably got that idea from Trinny and Susannah.

Episode C.12

[On what happened to the crew of the RMS Titanic]

Stephen Fry: Every single member of the crew had their wages stopped at the moment of the sinking. The moment a ship sinks, it is not a ship, therefore you can't work on it, therefore the White Star Line paid them up to the minute of the sinking.

Phill Jupitus: I would imagine that in a sinking situation, you'd hope to be getting time and a half.

[On the Titanic]

Phil Jupitus: Is it true that someone dressed as a lady to escape detection?

Stephen Fry: Yes, apparently it is true, because it was women and children first.

Bill Bailey: [chuckling] I thought you said "someone dressed as a baby".

Phil Jupitus: [posh accent] "Yes, goo-goo indeed. I have a lollipop and I have no control over my urinary functions. I am, in fact, an infant. And I know you think I'm Lord Albemarle, but I am in fact a little baby. With a beard. Yes, goo-goo, gaa-gaa. And madam, may I tell you I've been a very naughty baby?"

Episode D.01: "Danger"

Stephen Fry: One in thirty million people risk dying by being murdered, the risk of choking to death is one in a hundred and twenty million, the risk of dying by tea cosy is one in twenty billion. There is, however, a one in two hundred and fifty seven thousand chance of you dying today during this programme.

Jimmy Carr: … What have you got planned for Round Two?

Stephen Fry: There was a story during the Terror of the French Revolution, that two members of the National Assembly were guillotined and their heads put in the same bag straight away, and one bit the other so hard they couldn't be separated. Just the heads.

Jimmy Carr: That's holding a grudge, isn't it? For all intents and purposes, you're dead, let it go! Yeah, you didn't get on, whatever!

Stephen Fry: They were French.

Episode D.02: "Discoveries"

Arthur Smith: D'you know what you should drink with the beating heart of a cobra? This is a dish in China where you get a cobra—and it's brought to the table alive. They then slice it open, rip the heart out, and it's beating on the plate there—you have to chase it round the plate, I s'pose—and then you drink the blood of the snake as the wine.

Clive Anderson: Actually, I ordered the lasagne …

Arthur Smith: I had occasion to hire a theatrical duck, once …

Clive Anderson: A luvvie duck!

Vic Reeves: In my career, I've had occasion to hire many, many an animal, but the most expensive was a pelican.

Stephen Fry: Was it an enormous bill?

Episode D.03: "Dogs"

Stephen Fry: What comes before a German Bite?

Neil Mullarkey: [presses buzzer] A German Bark.

[The klaxon sounds and the words "German Bark" appear on the screen.]

Stephen Fry: You were thinking of J.S., possibly.

Alan Davies: No, they never bark when they're going to attack you. It's when they go quiet, that's when you have to worry.

Stephen Fry: Germans?

Stephen Fry: My great-uncle had his tongue shot off in the war. He never talked about it.

Episode D.04: "Dictionaries"

Rory Bremner: They built the station next to the power station you see there, which is the third worst eyesore in the country. It was a Country Life thing—do you know what the first one was?

Phill Jupitus: [in a posh accent] People! Public people! Working classes! Poorly groomed servants! The ill-bred ponies! That Blair fellow!

Stephen Fry: If I find out you've been intercepting my mail …

[Discussing dolphins]

Ronni Ancona: A lot of people say that they're smarter than people, but if they were, wouldn't they be saying that?

Episode D.05: "Death"

[Speaking of marmots]

Stephen Fry: Given the right conditions, it's a dangerous, a deadly merciless killer of humans. How?

Clive Anderson: [presses his buzzer]

Stephen Fry: Clive.

Clive Anderson: Lead piping in the billiard room.

[Guessing which illness most doctors treat more than any other]

Alan Davies: Pregnancy?

Clive Anderson: Pregnancy isn't a disease, Alan.

Andy Parsons: It would be if Alan got it!

Episode D.06: "Drinking"

Stephen Fry: Oh, there you are. Great Wall of China.

Jimmy Carr: I've got quite an interesting fact about that.

Stephen Fry: Yep.

Jimmy Carr: Longest wall in the world, not one cashpoint.

[After Stephen has had to have beer goggles explained to him]

Phill Jupitus: Stephen doesn't have beer goggles, he has Madeira pince-nez.

Episode D.07: "Differences"

Jo Brand: In fact, every woman in the world has got bird flu. But we don't give a shit, we just get on with our lives. Now it's only because a few men have caught it lately that people are going mad about it. "Oh, I've got bubonic plague, but I've still got to do the hoovering."

Stephen Fry: What's the difference between table tennis and ping pong?

Jo Brand: In table tennis you serve the ball with a bat, and in ping pong it's launched from the vagina of a Thai woman.

Episode D.08: "Descendants"

Jonathan Ross: What's the protocol for when you see a really ugly baby?

Rich Hall: I'll tell you. People show you their babies on their phone now, and it's like a cashew with some hair coming out of it. The thing to say is "Nice phone".

[Discussing what babies have that adults do not]

Stephen Fry: They don't have kneecaps, do they?

Jonathan Ross: Aren't you confusing them with mer-babies?

Episode D.09: "Doves"

Stephen Fry: Thirty-mile-an-hour winds come when a train enters the station, and a lot of hair gets blown down into the tunnels.

Andy Hamilton: That's how I lost mine, actually. Most of it is Tottenham Court Road.

[Talking about how Tube tunnels are cleaned]

Alan Davies: I don't understand why you can't have a—you know, like you used to have a cleaning tape for your cassette deck—you can't have a cleaning Tube? You'd just send a big furry train down …

Episode D.10: "Divination"

[About Derren Brown]

Johnny Vaughan: He's got one great trick. You know when you've got an empty seat by you in a train, and you don't want anybody to sit there? He says you're insane to put things on the chair to stop people sitting there. The trick is, as they approach, you smile at them and pat the seat.

Stephen Fry: The word "donkey"—when did it come into the English language?

Graeme Garden: When was Don Quixote published?

Episode D.11: "Deprivation"

Mark Steel: You know what they say is a test of whether you're anal? Whether or not you keep your records in alphabetical order. I would surely think that it depends on how many records you got—I mean, if you've only got two and you keep going back and going "ABBA, ZZ Top, they're still there, that's lovely" but I've got a roomful of bloody records! I keep them in alphabetical order so I can find the one I want! Apparently that means I got a problem with me arse! How is that right?

Stephen Fry: What is meant by the expression "hoover the talking seal"?

Roger McGough: Well, it's either one of those wonderful Oz expressions for throwing up … "Excuse me, I've got to go hoover the talking seal …"

Stephen Fry: Or "My wife came in just as I was hoovering the talking seal …"

Episode D.12: "Domesticity"

[Stephen has said that you get a better clean on a knife blade if you have it pointing up in the cutlery rack of a dishwasher.]

Phill Jupitus: I clean my knives in a crossbow. Some people say it's foolish. I put them in the hoover and set it on blow, and then shoot them and trap them around the kitchen, as I sit with a plug, bare-wired, at my feet, peeing on it! Gives it a better clean...

[A picture of a blood-spattered surgeon appears on the screen.]

Jo Brand: Can I just say, I'm so impressed you got a picture of my husband in our fantasy sex.

Episode D.13: "Christmas Special"

Dara Ó Briain: [explaining how to pour Guinness correctly] Five-twelfths of an inch is the ideal head around the top, and if somebody paints a shamrock into it, you're allowed to stab them in the eye with a fork.

Dara Ó Briain: [in thick Irish accent] And they stuck All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day around the time people were celebrating …

Stephen Fry: You know, I don't think there is an Arseholes Day.

Dara Ó Briain: You and your liberal agenda.

Episode E.01: "Engineering"

Stephen Fry: Where is the best place to be when a nuclear bomb goes off?

Jimmy Carr: I would've gone with downtown Nagasaki. Because what are the chances of that happening again? You've got to play the odds.

Stephen Fry: How can you tell that God is a civil engineer? Because when he designed the human body, he put the recreational area right next to the sewage outflow.

Episode E.02: "Electricity"

Stephen Fry: Now, question one, I think. I'm naked; it's raining. Can you give me a good reason why I should crouch down with my bottom in the air? [Jo immediately rings in; Stephen is already laughing.] Jo.

Jo Brand: Stephen, I wouldn't have thought you'd need a good reason.

[The number of British people killed by lightning each year]

Stephen Fry: It's between three and six, actually, it's not very many.

Alan Davies: Four or five.

Episode E.03: "Eating"

["What were cornflakes originally used for?"]

Johnny Vegas: It was for, er, putting in mattresses, for monks, as, er, an anti-masturbation sound trigger device …

[The audience begins to laugh.]

Stephen Fry: Johnny Vegas, take some points!

Johnny Vegas: You're jokin'!

[The whole studio roars with laughter. Apparently, the man who made cornflakes was a devoted anti-masturbation activist.]

[After hearing that eating nothing but rabbit will eventually kill you]

Johnny Vegas: My dad killed my pet rabbit and fed it to me.

[The audience is stunned.]

Stephen Fry: Did he?! [kindly] Perhaps he was trying to kill you, Johnny.

Episode E.04: "Exploration"

Stephen Fry: I love the way your mind works, Alan Davies … and I use the word "works" quite wrongly.

[About the first words spoken from the surface of the moon]

Bill Bailey: Was it 'This is the Moon, this is the end of the line...'

Rich Hall: Great to be here in Philadelph—I mean, the Moon.

Episode E.05: "Europe"

David Mitchell: [in imitation of an outraged right-winger] You don't take an active interest in how your country is run for just forty-five years, and look what happens!

Stephen Fry: Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland! Danach lasst uns alle streben Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!

Phill Jupitus: I have an erection.

Episode E.06: "Everything, Etc."

[Clive Anderson's buzzer is (Everything I Do) I Do It for You by Bryan Adams.]

Stephen Fry: Sometimes there just isn't enough vomit in the world.

Stephen Fry: And what are the symptoms of taking E? Do you know, Clive?

Clive Anderson: Um, I don't know, I haven't taken it myself. I've given ecstasy, but not …

Episode E.07: "Espionage"

Jo Brand: There's a great story about Conan Doyle, actually. One day, just for a joke, he wrote a note saying, We are discovered. Flee immediately, and he sent it to five of his friends to see what they would do. And one of them disappeared.

Stephen Fry: There was a time when all the elevator cables were sheared off in the Empire State Building. Do you know about this story?

Clive Anderson: Yeah, there was a giant ape on the side of it.

Episode E.08: "Eyes & Ears"

David Mitchell: [on the myth about the Brace position preserving dental records] I've heard that and frankly, I don't know why they don't just tell people. "In the unlikely event of the plane crashing, I think we can all agree, you'd like to be identified. Bite down as hard as you can on your own armrest."

David Mitchell: Fish don't blink. Which is the main eye defence. If you're ever trying to get the eye out of a fish and it blinks, it may be a lion.

Episode E.09: "Entertainment" (Children in Need Special)

Stephen Fry: Well, bless him, when he arrived—I'm not wishing to sound patronising, but I've just said "bless him," so there's no way out—

Alan Davies: I took my nephews to London Zoo, because a friend of ours is a zookeeper there, and she can get you in sort of the back. And we went in to see a lion, and they said, "There's some mesh—there's big mesh and small mesh. You must stay on the side where the big mesh is. Don't go near the small mesh. Stay where the big mesh is. Do you understand?" And the kids went—[nods nervously] And we just went in, and my nephew turned to me and said, "What's mesh?"

Episode E.10: "England"

Stephen Fry: So that's the Cameroon's Eton tribe. They have other ethnic groups called the Bum, the Bang, the Banana, the Mang, the Fang, the Tang, the Wum, the Wam, the War, and, of course, the Pongo.

Sean Lock: Who discovered this tribe, Benny Hill?

Alan Davies: There was a guy in our class called Jimmy Glasscock, you could always see when he was coming.

Episode E.11: "Endings"

Stephen Fry: What is pink, has pendulous breasts, gets sailors all excited and tastes of prime beef? [as Jimmy rings in] Yes?

Jimmy Carr: Was Princess Margaret buried at sea?

[Which island did Britain's fourth Antarctic expedition get stranded on in 1916?]

Jimmy Carr: Oh! Is it the Island of Reluctant but Inevitable Homosexuality? [laughter] I think I recognise it from that school trip that went horribly wrong …

Stephen Fry: Lord of the Undone Flies.

Episode E.12: "Empire" (Christmas Special)

[About why Germans like Mr. Bean]

Bill Bailey: There's a certain efficiency about it. [in German accent] "He does somesing, then he falls over. Is very amusing. Before, he vas valking in a straight line, so he's valking into the door! Is genius!"

Alan Davies: "Zis is vhat happens vhen you break ze rules!"

Bill Bailey: "Sometimes I stay up very late!"

[How to keep your children from peeking at their Christmas presents]

Alan Davies: Blind them.

Episode E.13: "Elephants" (Compilation Episode)

Phill Jupitus: [stuffing his face with spaghetti] Can I just say, this is the best quiz I've ever been on.

Stephen Fry: They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is … [Stephen flubs the line, causing the panellists to rib him mercilessly for the next 3-4 minutes as he tries to nail it for the recording - he eventually manages to force out to great applause:] … there are no straight lines!

Jimmy Carr: Do they? [sigh]

Alan Davies: Whatever …

Episode F.01 "Families" (Children in Need)

Stephen Fry: What's the most famous line from a Tarzan film?

Ronni Ancona: Oh, "Me Tarzan, you Jane."

Stephen Fry: Yes, except of course it never happened.

Ronni Ancona: What?!

David Mitchell: Why do these films always forget to put their most famous lines in?

[On Bertrand Russell's proof that 1 + 1 = 2]

David Mitchell: A bit late for 21st century, I say. You have a lot riding on 1 + 1 = 2, quite a lot of building going on, an international economy. What happens if you find out 1 + 1 doesn't equal 2 what do we do? Just burn everything, God knows anything can fall on your head. Money? You might as well eat it. Just forget civilisation.

Episode F.02 "Fire and Freezing" (Christmas Special)

Stephen Fry: What happened to the fireman's pole?

Rob Brydon: He tiled the fireman's bathroom.

Rob Brydon: I'm from the same town as Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.

Stephen Fry: And Michael Sheen.

Rob Brydon: And Michael Sheen, of course. In fact, my father grew up in the same street, literally the same street, as Anthony Hopkins.

Stephen Fry: Yeah … In England we live in houses.

Episode F.03 "Flotsam and Jetsam"

[After hearing about how the East German secret police used to take swabs of dissidents' body odour in order to identify them]

Charlie Higson: It does sound like a new perfume range, though, doesn't it? "Dissidence, from Calvin Klein."

Stephen Fry: [while explaining about the formula used to determine the number of times a paper could be folded] … what you need is length and thickness.

Alan Davies: That will get ripped off and straight onto YouTube. That will also become a ringtone. "What you need is length and thickness." [mimes accepting a call] "Hello?"

Stephen Fry: Damn you all. You want--

Alan Davies: And that'll be for text messages.

Episode F.04 "Fight or Flight"

Stephen Fry: Do you know what the French for "flying fish" is?

Alan Davies: Poisson … d'aeroplane …?

Stephen Fry: Name something that's much easier to do while wearing boxing gloves.

Sean Lock: Frisk a porcupine.

Stephen Fry: Very good!

Johnny Vegas: Give up masturbating!

Episode F.05 "France"

[After confirming that the reason Tour de France cyclists shave their legs has nothing to do with aerodynamics or speed]

Hugh Dennis: It's a shame it doesn't make any difference, because I've been using the fact that I don't shave my legs as an excuse for going five hours slower than the guy who won.

Stephen Fry: Which stage did you do?

Hugh Dennis: There's an open stage every year. An amateur stage. You do it two weeks before they do it. Eight thousand of us, and by the end, there were four thousand of us left at the end of it. I started in 2400th place, and I finished in 3400th place. I was passed by a thousand people. And it took me nine hours to catch up to the bloke with the one leg.

Phill Jupitus: [on the Bayeux Tapestry] That says 'Wil 6 Elm'.

Alan Davies: Normmano. I like that.

Phill Jupitus: Is that like medieval text speak? They never put the whole thing in. 'We've invaded Britain. lol'

Stephen Fry: O … M … G! Very good.

Episode F.06 "Fakes and Frauds"

[About the superb lyrebird]

Jimmy Carr: It can mimic anything? I'd make it woof. How funny would that be, if you had a bird that woofed?

Alan Davies: I'd get it to do limericks.

Marcus Brigstocke: I'd probably get it to do Bill Oddie.

Stephen Fry: Surely that would be a bearded tit, if it was anything.

Alan Davies: You're thinking of Rory McGrath.

Stephen Fry: The Eiffel Tower. They loathed it. Guy de Maupassant loathed it so much that his favourite restaurant was …?

Alan Davies: The "Eiffel Tower is Crap" Bistro.

Stephen Fry: No, it was in the Eiffel Tower.

Alan Davies: Oh, so he didn't have to look at it.

Stephen Fry: So—exactly. The one place in Paris he couldn't see the Eiffel Tower was inside the Eiffel Tower.

Marcus Brigstocke: Could he not maybe just ask for a chair facing the other way?

Stephen Fry: He was a French writer trying to make a point, and therefore a git.

Episode F.07 "Fingers and Fumbs"

Stephen Fry: By the way, does anyone know, incidentally, what is the best opening move of Paper, Scissors, Stone?

Dara Ó Briain: If you say, "You go first."

[About the Mona Lisa]

Stephen Fry: The University of Amsterdam used emotion recognition software to analyse the famous enigmatic smile.

Phill Jupitus: Or looked at her. "Emotion recognition software"? I don't know. My money's on "bored." What do you reckon?

Stephen Fry: It showed that it was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry. She was less than 1% neutral and not even a quarter of one percent surprised.

Phill Jupitus: Sounds like a breakdown of the audience.

Episode F.08 "Fashion"

Reginald D. Hunter: I was at a party here, and this guy was telling me about when he wore corduroy, and he says, "You're an American, do you know what corduroy is?" And I said, "No." And he went on to try and explain it, and eventually four or five people were around me, drunk, trying to explain to me what corduroy was. And eventually this girl who we didn't notice left the room, and she went upstairs to her apartment, and she just dashed in the room with a corduroy jacket, "Here! This is what it is! This is what it is!" And you know, I just … I went along with it because there's nothing like the warm look on white people's faces when they feel like they're teaching you something.

Stephen Fry: My name is Stephen "My Bottom Is a Treasure-house" Fry; thank you and good night.

Episode F.09 "The Future"

Stephen Fry: [to the camera] If you are watching QI now, and you believe in astrology, you are banned from watching in future. You are not allowed; you must turn it over now. Thank you.

Stephen Fry: Now. Picture the scene. I'm out windsurfing. The breeze is ruffling my trousers and sun-bleached hair. I look up, and I see on the horizon a ship. How far away is it?

Alan Davies: Twenty-one miles.

Stephen Fry: No.

Alan Davies: I thought it was always twenty-one miles.

Stephen Fry: No.

Alan Davies: I didn't even get flagged for that.

Stephen Fry: No, no, I didn't know that anybody always thought that it was twenty-one miles.

Episode F.10 "Flora and Fauna"

Stephen Fry: [pointing to the red flower in his buttonhole] What does my buttonhole tell you about me?

Jo Brand: That you're a closet heterosexual?

Stephen Fry: How dare you!

[After discussing how the heroine of La Dame aux Camélias wore a red camellia instead of a white one to indicate when she was on her period]

Stephen Fry: And the film based on La Dame aux Camélias is …?

Jo Brand: Carry On Menstruating.

Episode F.11: "Film"

Emma Thompson: [pointing at Stephen] I used to do that to him, actually, make sure that he couldn't get out while I was changing.

Stephen Fry: You did.

Emma Thompson: Yeah. It was very good fun.

Stephen Fry: She used to show me her breasts. [He rhymes the word with "beasts".]

Emma Thompson: This fantastic effect I used to have on him, 'cause I could make—I could do it now—I'm not going to, but I could—I could make him scream.

Stephen Fry: [small scream] No. No. Don't.

Emma Thompson: Not like that scream that we just heard, but a real, actual sort of scream of terror and fright, just by appearing nude at the top of his stairs. [Stephen shudders.] And doing what I like to do, which is locking all the doors at the bottom, so that when he tried to get out … [Stephen mimes pounding on locked doors] … as I came down the stairs, going, "Yes, baby, they're all yours!" By the end of which he was in a state of such extreme panic, and it's great to make someone very clever fall apart like that.

Emma Thompson: You know the word "luvvie"?

Stephen Fry: Yeah?

Emma Thompson: What do you all feel about it?

Stephen Fry: I mean, I'm not going to get as upset as some actors do—some actors say, "We do a bloody hard job at work, we're serious people, we—you know, it's a coal face, doing a play! How dare they call us luvvies!" I think that's a bit overdone. On the other hand, it's a bit tedious when the Daily Mail says "luvvie couple XYZ" or something …

Emma Thompson: Do you know what the first citation of it is in the OED?

Stephen Fry: No.

Emma Thompson: It's you.

Episode F.12: "Food"

Stephen Fry: What can you usefully teach an oyster? [as David rings in] Yes?

David Mitchell: Is it … you know … not to get its hopes up? To expect … lemon juice and death?

Stephen Fry: Name a poisonous snake.

Jimmy Carr: Piers Morgan.

[The forfeit alarm goes off.]