Stephen Fry quotes from QI

Stephen Fry

What makes Australian spiders so dangerous?

Rob Brydon

It’s their cunning and their organisation, Stephen. And the fact they’re willing to put the man hours in. They will stalk you for weeks, they’ll look for patterns in your behaviour, and they’ll strike when you least expect it.

Stephen Fry

What use is a goose?

Sandi Toksvig

[dead serious] Is it toilet paper? [general laughter] No, seriously. Is it - [more laughter]

Stephen Fry

Sandi, that is bizarre. Why do you say that?

Sandi Toksvig

Well, because I once read this book by Rabelais, I think it was called Gargantua. And he recommended that the best thing for toilet paper was a live goose. And I have yet to check in to a five-star hotel without a sense of disappointment.

Stephen Fry

So that's the uses of gooses or the eese of geese.

Sean Lock

Is the next question on the habits of rabbits?

Stephen Fry

Oh, I wish that it were.

Sean Lock

How far can you shove a dove?

Alan Davies

Hats of cats. That's my offer.

Stephen Fry

So there you are. There are these beautiful animals, and they are graceful and sweet and long eyelashes and sexy and rather desirable in many ways…

Sandi Toksvig

Good thing you're tall.

Stephen Fry

What's the commonest cause of death among mountain goats?

Bill Bailey

[hitting his buzzer] BRIAN BLESSED.

Stephen Fry

Which popular game traditionally ends with all of the participants being thrown into a lake of fiery sulfur?

Sean Lock

I hope it's show jumping. I hate show jumping!

Stephen Fry

…But the reference in the Bible to the fiery lake or whatever is from Revelations, where it does say that those who practice the magic arts will be cast into burning sulfur.

Phill Jupitus

How about balloon animals?

Stephen Fry

The punishment for people who do balloon animals is not specified in the Book of Revelations.

Sean Lock

I think it's loneliness, their punishment

Sean Lock

You could do it with other sports, couldn't you, though?

Stephen Fry

Yeah, go on.

Sean Lock

I don't know. Chugby.

Stephen Fry

Chugby?

Sean Lock

Chess and rugby.

Stephen Fry

Chess and rugby. I like that.

Alan Davies

Darts and swimming.

Stephen Fry

Ooh.

Alan Davies

Swarts.... Or dimming.

Stephen Fry

Or dimming.

Alan Davies

Underwater darts. Would that work?

Stephen Fry

Oh, yes, I like the sound of that.

Alan Davies

Or... Darts at swimmers.

Rob Brydon

Friends of mine, back in Wales, quite a few of them have got Welsh - it's not a famous voice but it's a Welsh SatNav, which basically goes, you know -

Stephen Fry

In Welsh language?

Rob Brydon

No, no, no, just with Welsh attitude. Welsh approach to life. Or death. "Turning coming up now in about forty yards, get ready for it. Getting a bit closer now, get ready, here it comes. [with utter disappointment] Ohh, you plank! You've missed it. [bored, motioning with his finger] Now, do a u-ie, do a u-ie. Do it! No - don't - oh, [cynical] pull over, attach a hose pipe to the exhaust and just end it all."

Stephen Fry

What are large - very large - blue, rare, slow-moving, have calfs...

Jimmy Carr

Ah, look at Alan's face!

Stephen Fry

...suffer from wet bottoms, and are found all over the world?

Alan Davies

[with a sly grin, pointing his finger at Stephen] Not the blue whale!

Alan Davies

It's all the time travel he does! He knows something about every era.

Stephen Fry

[cough] He's acting. [cough]

Bill Bailey

It's not real? [sounds agitated] What do you mean? What do you mean?

Don't listen to him. [glares at Stephen]

Stephen Fry

[raises a hand apologetically] I'm sorry!

Bill Bailey

[leans towards David] Don't tell me it's not real!

[whispering] Don't listen to the bad man!

Bill Bailey

I know, it’s a documentary, I know.

Yes, Exactly.

Alan Davies

Cybermen are real. Saw one in the corridor upstairs looking for you.

Stephen Fry

At school, we used to do what we called quad hockey, which is like a polo, only on bikes. You use a hockey stick and a ball, and you just go round on, um…

Bill Bailey

On quad bikes?

Stephen Fry

No, not on quad bikes. In a quad. In a quadrangle.

Bill Bailey

You were playing hockey in a quadrangle? You had a very different sort of schooling to a lot of us.

Stephen Fry

Why? How is that different?

Lee Mack

Well, in my school, we used to set fire to cars. In an octangle.

Alan Davies

The Nazis banned smoking?

Stephen Fry

The Nazis, yeah, they had very strong anti-smoking…

Bill Bailey

The more I hear about them, the less I like them.

Alan Davies

"Well that's the final straw!"

Stephen Fry

"Up until this point, I've been prepared to listen…"

Alan Davies

"Oh, I can rationalise everything else, but that …"

Lee Mack

You can't damn it and damn it and double damn it. You could damn it and damn it and triple damn it.

Stephen Fry

Yeah. That was his mistake.

Bill Bailey

[eyeing David] ...chairman of the pedantic society.

Lee Mack

Vice chairman actually. [grins]

I’ll tell you what annoyed me, if it’s 5 items or fewer, then it’s 5 items or fewer! Don’t come in with 6 and stand in front of me.

Stephen Fry

You look in their basket?

You bet I do. Yeah. And then say absolutely nothing.