Advanced Banter

The QI Book of Quotations

John Lloyd & John Mitchinson

 

Upgrade your small talk instantly with this compendium of crisp one-liners.

Have you ever wondered why most books of quotations are stuffed full of rather pedestrian quotes by people you've never heard of? It's a shame because a really good quotation book, one which gathered the truest and funniest insights of the best minds, and organised them into more than 400 subjects, from ambition to worry, (or from artichokes to windows), a book which offered you a useful take on almost every situation life throws at you (from the death of your child's hamster to the unified theory of everything), a sourcebook of wise one-liners, of knock-out jokes, of droll asides and heartfelt statements of truth and beauty, a practical handbook of interestingness, well, that would be worth having. And, guess what? We've come up with one.

As well as the quotes themselves, there is an introduction from the Bantermeister himself and lots of quite interesting background information on the people quoted (and misquoted). Six years of learning how to avoid the dull stuff have left us in a uniquely good position to deliver this elusive holy grail: the big, useful, funny and really very good book of quotations.

"The Worcestershire sauce of conversation."

STEPHEN FRY

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The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.
VICTOR LEWIS SMITH

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea-cosy, doesn't try it on.
BILLY CONNOLLY

You know 'that look' women get when they want sex? Me neither.
STEVE MARTIN

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb ... and I'm also not blonde.
DOLLY PARTON

All anybody needs to know about prizes is that Mozart never won one.
HENRY MITCHELL

Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.
STEUART HENDERSON BRITT

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
POUL ANDERSON

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him.
STUDS TERKEL

You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty.
SACHA GUITRY

If it were not for quotations, conversation between gentlemen would consist of an endless succession of 'what-ho!s'.
P.G. WODEHOUSE