David Mitchell quotes from QI

Jimmy Carr

It's just so stupid, isn't it? Beating your wife... I mean, it's your wife- it's like keying your own car!

David Mitchell

Society just got a tiny bit worse...

Jimmy Carr

I like to think I can help.

Stephen Fry

What happens if an ear wig gets into your ear?

David Mitchell

It gets into your brain, and it stays there, and you form a sort of symbiotic relation with it. It happened to me 20 years ago, and we've never been happier!

Alan Davies

If you cut their whiskers off, they can get their head stuck in a milk bottle, I know that.

Stephen Fry

...from experience?

Alan Davies

They will try, if you put something at the bottom like a bit of tuna.

David Mitchell

And if they do actually manage it, you end up with a lovely bottled cat! That you can take to a party. "I couldn't decide red or white, so I brought a cat."

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?

Stephen Fry

In order to prove mathematics from the very beginning, you have to establish the first principle of arithmetic, and that piece of symbolic logic was proving that one plus one equals two.

David Mitchell

It’s a bit late, the 20th century, to prove that, I’d say.

Stephen Fry

A bit late?

David Mitchell

You’ve got quite a lot riding by the 20th century on one plus one being two, you know? There’s quite a lot of engineering happening. Quite a complex international economy. If you find out that it doesn’t equal two, what do we do? Just burn everything! God know anything could fall on our heads. Money, you might as well eat it. Forget civilisation!

Stephen Fry

What can you usefully teach an oyster? [David rings in] Yes?

David Mitchell

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

Jimmy Carr

The feeding of the five thousand? Like there's five thousand people and they wanted some bread and fish. I reckon that was just about four and a half thousand people going, "What have we got, bread and fish? I'm all right, thanks. I'll have something when I get home."

David

The other interesting thing about that story is that out of the five thousand people, only two of them had thought to bring any food. And so in a way it's, okay, good miracle, but the other side of it is 4,998 idiots with no sense of foresight at all. And Jesus doesn't make them learn a lesson from that!

Stephen Fry

"This is the sermon on the Mount. This isn't Glastonbury," he could have said, couldn't he?

David Mitchell

But, you know, he should have said "You didn't bring any food! Of course there's not gonna be any food! Think about it!" ... "Plan next time! Judea would be better if people planned!" But no. "Yeah, it always works out fine; Jesus'll magic up some grub!" No! He's gonna get crucified one day, and then what are you gonna eat?

David Mitchell

It’s like trying to police a country with Daleks.

Jimmy Carr

Which’d never work with the disabled access we’ve got now. The Daleks can get everywhere.

David Mitchell

Jimmy, are you saying that you think that disabled access is a Dalek conspiracy?

Jimmy Carr

Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying.

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!

David Mitchell

What a weird, unsettling thing to discover that would be, in the context of the credit crunch and everything, suddenly to discover that Rodney Bewes was immortal. Just imagine, on the news, them going: "And today it emerged that actor Rodney Bewes has been alive for as long as time."

Graham Norton

Given the things that we're talking about, or pretending to know what we're talking about, I actually really don't know who Rodney Bewes is.

Stephen Fry

I have to say, the whole point about QI, right, is that the rest of the world talks about cultural things, reality TV and pop stars and Rodney Bewes… and we talk about Leonardo. And what you've done [motions towards Graham] by coming on is we started - no, you actually. [turns to point at Alan] We started talking about Leonardo and we've arrived at Rodney Bewes! That's the wrong direction!

Graham Norton

I didn't even know who he was!

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

Why are so many great men short?

David Mitchell

[doubtfully] Are they really?

Stephen Fry

David, David. You've hit the nail on the head. Rem acu tetigisti, as they would say in latin.

David Mitchell

…I'm sure they would.

Sean Lock

It means: 'Nice one, son'.

David Mitchell

It's gone off already, I mean, cheese basically, hasn't it?

Stephen Fry

That's it's point, exactly. It is the celebration of what happens when milk goes off big time styley.

Sean Lock

It should just: you should work for the milk marketing mob. Get some lovely "English milk gone off big time styley". "I'll have a 'milk gone off big time styley and tomato sandwich' please." That's a brilliant description!

David Mitchell

Is this radio...?

Rob Brydon

I haven’t said anything for a while.

Stephen Fry

Date of death?

Rob Brydon

August 16th, 1977.

David Mitchell

It’s like Radio 2 in the middle of the night!