Stephen Fry quotes from QI

Stephen Fry

It seems that we produce about three pints of wind a day.

Jo Brand

Pints?

Stephen Fry

Yes, it's measured in pints. Released in ten to fifteen individual "episodes".

Andy Hamilton

You can get the box set as well.

Alan Davies

Or, you can have a feature-length episode.

Stephen Fry

Why shouldn’t you sleep with a dog?

Andy Hamilton

He won’t respect you in the morning.

Stephen Fry

You've gotta have two machines abreast, is usual, isn't it? And then all the living quarters were next door... [interrupted by a chuckle from Alan]

Alan Davies

Sorry, I've just thought of breasts. [hands on his chest] "Two machines"?

Stephen Fry

[laughing] Two machines per breast.

Sandi Toksvig

It was an odd moment, Alan, 'cos I was with you.

Sandi Toksvig

Sorry, is he gonna get points for something - and we weren't even there!

I know a loads of stuff I haven't said!

Dara Ó Briain

I'm okay, 'cos I came on series two, and I mentioned the triple point of water being zero. And in series three I came back, and they said: "Oh no, we've had e-mails, that actually the temperature is 0.01." Right, so I was one hundredth of a degree off on this. And he docked me points! The following year! So I'm happy, I'll take them.

Stephen Fry

Yes, exactly. What goes around, comes around. [to the other panelists] Don't feel bad. You may get points, next… two years time.

Dara Ó Briain

Some day when you least expect it, when you're sitting and having coffee, Stephen will appear and go: [bows] "Some points".

Chris Addison

You know, Edison electrocuted an elephant. It's my favourite fact of all time.

Stephen Fry

Yes. Do you know why?

Chris Addison

He was carrying out an execution.

Alan Davies

I think you might know this 'cos you saw it on QI.

Stephen Fry

[laughing] Yes.

Chris Addison

Really? [over the audience laughter] The problem of joining you people so late is that you've basically covered all human knowledge!

Stephen Fry

Tell me something quite interesting about the original geishas.

Jack Dee

They were all men.

Stephen Fry

Yes!

Jack Dee

Oh, God.

Stephen Fry

The first person to reason that the tropics were not hotter because they're nearer the sun, but because a smaller area is lit by an equal amount of light compared to other latitudes, was George Best. [to the incredulous amusement of the panelists] It's absolutely true! It was George Best who worked that out.

Chris Addison

Oh, you've lost it now. You've completely lost it. You're gonna have to hand this over to someone else.

Stephen Fry

My next question is this; why can’t blindfolded people walk in a straight line?

Alan Davies

Can’t see where they’re going. Next question.

David Mitchell

They do seem like the most evil of birds, don’t they?

Stephen Fry

They’re often considered creatures of ill omen, aren’t they? In Shakespeare they’re often used as a symbol.

Phill Jupitus

Yeah, but that’s because you’re just seeing them with Carmina Burana playing.

David Mitchell

Do you think I should get something else on my iPod?

Phill Jupitus

Tijuana Taxi by Herb Alpert. [Hums the song.] You see, that’s a nice crow. Put a sombrero on it, take the edge off it.

David Mitchell

Yeah, but even if you had Carmina Burana and you were looking at a robin, you wouldn’t think the robin was evil, would you?

Phill Jupitus

I would.

David Mitchell

Would you?

Phill Jupitus

Yeah, dirty bastard robin.

Stephen Fry

Do you know the most commonly played word in Scrabble?

Jeremy Clarkson

Penis.

Stephen Fry

No.

Jeremy Clarkson

It is in my house.

Alan Davies

So what do we have to pronounce?

Stephen Fry

Now, yes that’s what I was... how did you know that I was gonna ask that as a supplementary question?

Alan Davies

I thought you already did.

Stephen Fry

Oh, did I already say it?

Alan Davies

Either that, or I read it off the autocue.

Stephen Fry

You read it off the autocue! You great big cheater!

Stephen Fry

Why did the Spanish Duke of Alba order 7000 pairs of ice skates?

Sean Lock

Cos he was a millipede. Can’t see from that picture. Thousands of legs.

Stephen Fry

Any thoughts as to why he might have ordered 7000 pairs of ice skates?

Sean Lock

He wanted to wipe it out. “I hate ice skating. I’m gonna buy all the boots, and it’ll just die out.”

Stephen Fry

We’re talking the 17th century.

Sean Lock

That’s what I’d do.

Stephen Fry

[Trying to get back on track.] We’re talking the 17th century. The pope...

Sean Lock

I’d do it for showjumping though.

Stephen Fry

Right.

Sean Lock

I’d buy all the horses. And all those funny blocks that look like walls you’ve never seen before. Buy all those. And then showjumping would be finished forever.

Stephen Fry

So you think he was trying to wipe out ice skating as a sport?

Sean Lock

Yes. Yeah. It’d be a good James Bond plot, wouldn’t it? Instead of trying to take over the world, I’m trying to stop showjumping. James Bond’s gotta get me and kill me before...

Ross Noble

The trouble is though, you’ve got all them obstacles. You’ve got all them obstacles in your garden, and you’ve bought the horses. They’re gonna... it’s in their nature. They’re gonna be doing it in the garden. You’ll look out, be entertained...

Sean Lock

Hoisted by my own petard.

Stephen Fry

After all, as you know, there is a tradition, is there not, the very saying of the word Macbeth in a theatre brings bad luck.

Sue Perkins

You have to sleep with all your co-stars immediately.

Stephen Fry

Is that what you were told?

Stephen Fry

There was one based on The Comedy of Errors...

Sue Perkins

What happens in The Comedy of Errors?

Stephen Fry

There are two sets of identical twins...

Sue Perkins

[exasperated at Shakespeare's stock characters] Oh God, one of them's shipwrecked, "who's a girl, who's a boy?", "I'm married!", everyone's dead!

Stephen Fry

Might have been a prostitute, might have been a brothel.

Sue Perkins

So a brothel bill, then.

Bill Bailey

I didn't have that.

Sue Perkins

To be honest, the service charge in this is redundant.

Bill Bailey

I had one of them, two of them...

David Mitchell

I asked for that, but it never happened.

Stephen Fry

It was off.

Bill Bailey

If we all chip in...

Stephen Fry

Why don't we have a big one, and we all have a bit?

Stephen Fry

Anyway, what made Lord Byron limp?

Sue Perkins

That's a follow-up question.

Bill Bailey

Item four on the brothel bill...?