Alan Davies quotes from QI

Alan Davies

Poison is not the same as venom. It can’t be. Because there are loads of poisonous snakes.

Jimmy Carr

You sounded so like Jonathan Creek just then. You just somehow, with the pen, it’s just so right.

Stephen Fry

I’ve got the answer! In a locked room.

Stephen Fry

Now, before we move on, we’d like you to draw now, you should have a card if you haven’t sawn it in half. We’d like you to draw the world’s first novelty teapot.

Stephen Fry

Alan.

Alan Davies

Sorry, it all went down... it’s quite a draught in here as it turns out.

Stephen Fry

What did I ask you to draw?

Alan Davies

Draw the world’s first novelty teapot.

Stephen Fry

Damn, you were listening. That’s very good.

Alan Davies

Still going rainforest. I'm sorry.

Stephen Fry

Yes, but you'd have to travel thousands of miles, you'd have to park there, you'd have to look, you'd have to, you know -

Alan Davies

Park?!

Alan Davies

You know when you find a bee, and it's crawling on its last legs.

Rob Brydon

I always rescue them.

Alan Davies

You give it honey. It's the only thing they eat, makes sense when you think about it.

Alan Davies

No point in just talking to it. Give it honey!

David Mitchell

They're very much a one-recipe species, aren't they?

Dara Ó Briain

I'm intrigued, because I would, um, I generally give it a sole of my shoe. You know, not to be harsh, but…

Alan Davies

[exasperated] You step on a struggling, crawling bee? Trying to get back to the hive?

Dara Ó Briain

What? As opposed to rehabilitate it?

Alan Davies

I like honey! I have it on my porridge! You murderer!

David Mitchell

[after the argument has gone on for a while] But isn't it true, though, that a bee, in its entire lifetime, makes absolutely tiny amount of honey overall? So you don't have to give much rehabilitating honey to this one bee before the nation, the world, is making a net loss! I mean, it's useless. If you only get one teaspoon of honey from a whole bee's lifetime, and every time you have to get it back on its feet it takes a teaspoon and a half, suddenly there's no honey at all! You're insulting it apart from anything else! It's like showing a very tired mason a whole cathedral!

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.

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.

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.

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 …"

Bill Bailey

[mimicking German accent] "Zees new uniforms are cool!"

Bill Bailey

[ironically] So this is Christmas...

Alan Davies

[mimicking German accent] "I joined ze Nazi party. Zey're cool, daddy-o!"

Bill Bailey

"Cool, daddy-o!"

Alan Davies

"And bezides, I have no choice."

Bill Bailey

"I burned down a Reichstag. Cool!"

Alan Davies

I thought you were supposed to play natural sounds because the noises of contemporary life are extremely distractive and create behavioral difficulties. That's why you mustn't have television on 'til they're four, or something like that.

Dara Ó Briain

That's not how parenting works, my friend. You have the television - you train them to like the television as quickly as you possibly can!

Alan Davies

[laughing] Because there was no ADHD until television was invented, they kind of coincide…

Dara Ó Briain

They're happy with HD, my friend.

Stephen Fry

How old are you?

Graham Norton

[flirtatiously] How old do I look?

Alan Davies

[flirtatiously] How old do I feel?

David Mitchell

Just shows you the effect of this game, though. You ask a question, all four of us think: "That is something I definitely know the answer to, but I've been made so uncertain, and frightened about that, [motions behind himself - referring to the klaxon] that I'm not even willing to give my own age, name, or address".

Dara Ó Briain

How can it be a trap? How can this possibly be a trap? I AM thirty-seven. Look! [hits the buzzer - Dublin, Ó Briain] Thirty-seven! There we go. No points lost...

Dara Ó Briain

BUT THAT'S NOT WRONG!

David Mitchell

DON'T ACCEPT IT: YOU ARE!

Dara Ó Briain

I actually am!

Graham Norton

We should all do it.

David Mitchell

Yeah, alright. [hits the buzzer - Peterhouse, Mitchell] 34.

Stephen Fry

34, eh?

David Mitchell

34.

Stephen Fry

[to Graham] You don't want to do this, do you?

Graham Norton

No, I'll do it. [hits the buzzer - Cork, Norton] Graham Norton, 46.

Alan Davies

I'm not doing it...

Stephen Fry

How many brains did the the man with two brains have?

Alan Davies

…Two?

Stephen Fry

Yes! That's brilliant!

David Mitchell

[Banging both fists on the table] It's so cruel!

Stephen Fry

He's wise enough to spot a double bluff!

David Mitchell

It's just the technique of the bully! You hit us! And then you go: [with appropriate mimicry] "Oh, you thought I was going to hit you! I wouldn't hit you. I'm not going to hit you. This is my hand to stroke you." And we go: "Aargh, aargh, he's stroking us!"

Stephen Fry

But even more extraordinary is the word 'girl'. Right up until mid 15th century...

Alan Davies

Boys were called girls?

Stephen Fry

Yes.

Alan Davies

They were!?

Stephen Fry

All children... You're having to rethink everything, aren't you?

Alan Davies

This is the most extraordinary episode yet!

Sandi Toksvig

I think there's a scientific relationship between a sense of humour and the male sex organ.

Alan Davies

People are always laughing at mine.