John Lloyd - QI: Advanced Banter

THE QI BOOK OF QUOTATIONS

John Lloyd and John Mitchinson

Acting Action Adventure Advertising Advice Afterlife Age Aliens Ambition America American cities Anger Animals Antarctica Anxiety Apathy Apes Apples Architecture Arguments Art Artichokes Artists Astrology Astronomy Atheism Atoms Attention Attitude Autobiography Awards

Banking Beauty Belief The Bible Birds Books Boredom Boxing Brain Bureaucracy Business Butterflies

Cabbage California Canada Candles Careers Cars Catastrophes Cathedrals Cats Cats and Dogs Celery Certainty Chairs Champagne Chance Change Character Cheerfulness Cheese Chemistry Chess Chickens Children Chocolate Christianity Cigars Civilisation Clarity Cleverness Clowns Coffee Colour Comedy Committees Communism Composers Computers Consciousness Conversation Cosmology Courage Cows Creation Creativity Crime Criticism Crying Curiosity

Daffodils Dancing Danger Dating Daughters Death Decisions Democracy Desire Desperation Destiny Diamonds Diaries Dictators Dieting Differences Difficulty Diplomacy Discoveries Divorce Doctors Dogs Doubt Drawing Dreams Drink Drugs Drunks Duty

Ears Earth Economics Education Effort Eggs Ego Electricity Encouragement Ends Enemies England Enlightenment Enthusiasm Equality Events Evil Evolution Excuses Exercise Experience Expressions Eyes

Faces Facts Failure Faith Fame Families Fashion Fathers Fear Fish Flowers Food Football Forgetfulness Forgiveness Freedom Free Speech Free Will Friendship Fun Future

Gardening Genius Geometry Giving God Gods Golf Goodness Gossip Government Grass Gravity Greatness Greeks

Habit Hands Happiness Hatred Heaven Hell Historians History Honesty Hope Housework Human Beings Human Body Human Nature Humility Humour

Ideas Idleness Ignorance Illness Imagination Impossibility Insignificance Inspiration Integrity Intelligence Interestingness Internet Intuition Inventions Investments

Jokes Journalism Joy Judgement

Kindness Knowledge

Language Last Words Laughter Laws Lawyers Leadership Learning Legs Life Light Listening Literature Living Logic Loneliness Love Luck Lying

Machinery Madness Magic Magnetism Manners Marriage Mathematics Meaning Memory Men Men and Women Mind Miracles Misery Mistakes Money Morality Mothers Mountains Movies Music Musical Instruments Musicians Mystery

Nationalities Nature Neurosis Newspapers Night Normality Nothingness Numbers

Obviousness Opera Opinions Originality

Painters Painting Paradox Parents Patience Peace Peanuts Pencils Personality Persuasion Philosophy Photography Physics Places Play Pleasure Plots Poetry Politicians Politics Popes Possessions Potatoes Practice Prayer Predictions Presidents Principle Prison Problems Procrastination Progress Proverbs Psychology Purpose

Quality Questions Quotations

Rain Reality Reason Relativity Religion Research Revenge Risk Rules

Science Sculpture Sea Seeing Self Self-knowledge Sentimentality Sex Sheep Shoes Silence Simplicity Sin Size Sleep Smell Smoking Snowflakes Solitude Sorrow Soul Sound Space Speech Speeches Speed Spirals Sports Stars Stories Strangeness Statistics Stupidity Style Success Suffering Suicide Superstition Surprise

Taste Tea Teachers Technology Television Theories Things Thinking Time Tools Towns Travel Treachery Trees Trouble Trust Truth

Ugliness Umbrellas Understanding Universe

Vegetables Vegetarianism Violence Virtue

War Water Wealth Weather Weeds Whisky Wind Windows Wine Wisdom Wit Women Words Work Worry Writing

Yes and No Youth

Zen

Stephen Fry

They say that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the last person to read everything. By the time he died there were now too many books, they suggest, for any one single brain to engage with. They, as usual, are wrong. There were already millions of books in Europe by the year 1500, just half a century after the first printed page flew from the first press. To read a million books in a lifetime you would have to read forty a day for seventy years. I couldnt even manage half that amount for half as long with cigarettes before giving up and it takes a lot longer to read a book than to smoke a cigarette, let me tell you.
Philosophers, wits, novelists, cooks, poets, essayists, herbalists, mathematicians, builders, poets and divines had poured out more thoughts in that first fifty years than had been committed to paper or vellum in the previous thousand. And the rate only continued to increase as it approached this centurys dizzyingly insane levels of oversupply. With so much flowing from so many different human brains, who can be arsed to read it? Not I, sir and madam, not I. Its all I can do to peruse the side of a packet of breakfast cereal without distraction from radio, television and phone. I have no doubt you are in the same case. You would dearly like to suck intellectual and metaphysical juice from the fruity flesh of the worlds best thinkers and writers but the treetops are all out of reach and it would be too much of a fag to go and fetch a ladder. If only someone would pick, pulp and squeeze that fruit for you, you have been thinking not the usual anthologisers, but those splendid elves from the Quite Interesting team, the fruits of whose labours are offered with such satisfying and repetitive regularity on the BBC and channels Dave, Mike, Pete, Steve and Neville.
Your wish has been answered in the quote interesting volume even now stuffed up your pullover as you streak for the bookshops security barrier. There has never been a collection like it. Look in vain for the obvious, the banal and the platitudinous. On every page you will marvel at what oft was thought but neer so well expressed.
And you can quote me.

Biarritz, Dublin and Hell