Why shouldn’t you sleep with a dog?
He won’t respect you in the morning.
All S1
S1 E15Unfinished Business
I once bought a racehorse by mistake.
What had you originally gone into the shop for?
[On fire stations]
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]
Sorry, I've just thought of breasts. [hands on his chest] "Two machines"?
[laughing] Two machines per breast.
It was an odd moment, Alan, 'cos I was with you.
[Dara is given back points unfairly deducted from him in an earlier episode]
Sorry, is he gonna get points for something - and we weren't even there!
AMAl Murray
I know a loads of stuff I haven't said!
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.
Yes, exactly. What goes around, comes around. [to the other panelists] Don't feel bad. You may get points, next… two years time.
Some day when you least expect it, when you're sitting and having coffee, Stephen will appear and go: [bows] "Some points".
Once you’ve got a baby, food on the floor really is fair game. If you didn’t eat food off the floor, you’re wasting about 90 quid a week.
Why don’t moths come out during the day if they’re so fond of the bloody light?
You know, Edison electrocuted an elephant. It's my favourite fact of all time.
Yes. Do you know why?
He was carrying out an execution.
I think you might know this 'cos you saw it on QI.
[laughing] Yes.
Really? [over the audience laughter] The problem of joining you people so late is that you've basically covered all human knowledge!
Tell me something quite interesting about the original geishas.
They were all men.
Yes!
Oh, God.
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.
Oh, you've lost it now. You've completely lost it. You're gonna have to hand this over to someone else.
[Turns out Stephen was talking about an Elizabethan scientist, not the footballer]
My next question is this; why can’t blindfolded people walk in a straight line?
Can’t see where they’re going. Next question.
They do seem like the most evil of birds, don’t they?
They’re often considered creatures of ill omen, aren’t they? In Shakespeare they’re often used as a symbol.
Yeah, but that’s because you’re just seeing them with Carmina Burana playing.
Do you think I should get something else on my iPod?
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.
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?
I would.
Would you?
Yeah, dirty bastard robin.
Do you know the most commonly played word in Scrabble?
Penis.
No.
It is in my house.
So what do we have to pronounce?
Now, yes that’s what I was... how did you know that I was gonna ask that as a supplementary question?
I thought you already did.
Oh, did I already say it?
Either that, or I read it off the autocue.
You read it off the autocue! You great big cheater!
Why did the Spanish Duke of Alba order 7000 pairs of ice skates?
Cos he was a millipede. Can’t see from that picture. Thousands of legs.
Any thoughts as to why he might have ordered 7000 pairs of ice skates?
He wanted to wipe it out. “I hate ice skating. I’m gonna buy all the boots, and it’ll just die out.”
We’re talking the 17th century.
That’s what I’d do.
[Trying to get back on track.] We’re talking the 17th century. The pope...
I’d do it for showjumping though.
Right.
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.
So you think he was trying to wipe out ice skating as a sport?
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...
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...
Hoisted by my own petard.
[After having quoted Hamlet]
And that will be the only quote, that's it, I've blown all my quotes.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's QI pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.