Alan Davies quotes from QI

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.

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.

Alan Davies

I'm not as stupid as you think.

Stephen Fry

No, you're not. You couldn't be.

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.

Alan Davies

How many states of matter are there?

Stephen Fry

Oh, hello. If you count plasma, I suppose 4: liquids, soli-

Alan Davies

Oop!

Alan Davies

Four is wrong. Six! I'm surprised at you Stephen.

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 Davies

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

"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

This one for everyone... What kind of animal is sacred in India?

Stephen Fry

[growled whisper]: DO NOT SAY COW!

Stephen Fry

DO NOT SAY COW! That is my hint.

Is it the cow?

Alan Davies

What do penguins in the Falkland Islands do when RAF jets fly over?

[In University Challenge voice] Fry, Cambridge!

Alan Davies

Why do people believe all this stuff, Stephen?

Stephen Fry

Well, it’s whether you agree with it or not—

Alan Davies

Never mind televisions ruined Bhutan, this stuff is responsible for some serious aggravation in the world. And people believe it all, for God’s sake! They do believe it all! Bronze age mythology, they believe it all.

Stephen Fry

People believing in manna doesn’t really upset me or anybody sensible as much as, say, than believing—

Alan Davies

I don’t eat meat, right? I don’t eat meat, and someone actually said to me, someone who should remain nameless, really angrily: “Animals were put on earth for us to eat.” What does he mean by that? Put by whom?

Stephen Fry

That’s silly. Off course that’s silly.

Alan Davies

I said: “You can eat one if you want, but don’t shout at me about them being put there like it’s some big toy farmyard.” You are really clever, why do they believe it all? Can’t they just go: “Bwooh, that was mad, I thought that was true for a minute.” Why do people believe it?!

Stephen Fry

Because they are foolish and ignorant and scared.

Alan Davies

They need to believe it? Do they need to believe it?

Stephen Fry

There is a distinction to be drawn between those who claim to have access to revealed truth and therefore claim to know what happens to us after we’re dead on the basis of a text, whether it’s a Quran or a Holy Bible.

Alan Davies

But why do people believe them?

Stephen Fry

Which is nonsensical. And if they want to believe it, they’re fine, but they mustn’t push it down our throats and they mustn’t tell me whom I’m allowed to go to bed with and whom I’m not allowed to go to bed with. It’s not acceptable. Anybody who tells me what happens after I’m dead is either a liar or a fool, because they don’t know.

Alan Davies

That is what I mean! I don’t mind—

Stephen Fry

The myth of the Jewish people having manna dropped on their heads, that doesn’t actually matter. That’s no more different — that’s like Greek myth or any other myth, that’s fine. It’s when it gets to telling people how to behave is where we do draw the line.

Alan Davies

Did you know all the rats in England all face the same direction at any given time?

Stephen Fry

Oh, come on.

Bill Bailey

No, that's right. Because they're magnetic, aren't they, rats?

Alan Davies

They spent so long in lead lined sewage pipes, that they move with the curvature of the earth.

Bill Bailey

Hence the phrase "there's rat, and true rat. And absolute rat."

Alan Davies

Are all the stars round?

Stephen Fry

I can't answer that. Um, I think probably most-

Alan Davies

Yet you know what people thought five hundred years ago?

Stephen Fry

Do I read books? Yes. Have I visited every star in the universe? No. Is this something you find difficult to understand? [A few moments of silence pass.] You've set me off.

Stephen Fry

Who, or what, is Cummingtonite?

Alan Davies

[Giggles] I don’t know. The night is young, Stephen.

Alan Davies

What's your favourite bit of the koala. Do you like the hands, the little hands?

Jimmy Carr

I like the cock.

Stephen Fry

Oh stop.

Jimmy Carr

Told ya.

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.

I think he also played the tenor banjo.

Sean Lock

He had eleven knuckles!

Alan Davies

And, in fact, was actually a chicken.

Stephen Fry

[exasperated] So, the most biographed man in the 18th century...

Alan Davies

Something’s 98% water, I know it is.

Jimmy Carr

Is it the sea?