Douglas Adams > Quotes

“In the great debate that has raged for centuries about what, if anything, happens to you after death, be it heaven, hell, purgatory or extinction, one thing has never been in doubt - that you would at least know the answer when you were dead.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“If they don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole Meggy's heart away and I got Sidney's leg.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.”
― Douglas Adams

“Mostly harmless”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I begged her, 'Please don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'"
"What did she say?"
"She hit me on the head with the rock again," Ford responded curtly.
"I think i can confirm that was my daughter."
"Sweet kid."
"You have to get to know her," said Arthur.
"She eases up, does she?"
"No, but you get a better sense of when to duck.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“It is of course perfectly natural to assume that everyone else is having a far more exciting time than you. Human beings, for instance, have a phrase that describes this phenomenon, ‘The other man’s grass is always greener.’
The Shaltanac race of Broopkidren 13 had a similar phrase, but since their planet is somewhat eccentric, botanically speaking, the best they could manage was, ‘The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauvy shade of pinky-russet.’ And so the expression soon fell into disuse, and the Shaltanacs had little option but to become terribly happy and contented with their lot, much to the surprise of everyone else in the Galaxy who had not realized that the best way not to be unhappy is not to have a word for it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“‎If you ever find you need help again, you know, if you're in trouble, need a hand out of a corner..."
"Yeah?"
"Please don't hesitate to get lost.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“A doctor, a logician and a marine biologist had also just arrived, flown in at phenomenal expense from Maximegalon to try to reason with the lead singer who had locked himself in the bathroom with a bottle of pills and was refusing to come out till it could be proved conclusively to him that he wasn't a fish. The bass player was busy machine-gunning his bedroom and the drummer was nowhere on board.

Frantic inquiries led to the discovery that he was standing on a beach on Santraginus V over a hundred light years away where, he claimed, he had been happy for over half an hour now and had found a small stone that would be his friend.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“That was it. That was really it. She knew that she had told herself that that was it only seconds earlier, but this was now the final real ulimate it.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason [Zaphood] had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“What was the self-sacrifice?"
I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes."
Why was that self-sacrifice?"
Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly.
I think we have different value systems."
Well mine's better.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
― Douglas Adams

“I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The light works," he said, indicating the window, "the gravity works," he said, dropping a pencil on the floor. "Anything else we have to take our chances with.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"
"Six by nine. Forty two."
"That's it. That's all there is."
"I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“something almost, but not quite entirely unlike tea”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity", said Arthur. "It sounded like rather a good lifestyle otherwise.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Was there a reason behind it? There would be no point in asking Zaphod, he never appeared to have a reason for anything he did at all: he had turned unfathomability into an art form. He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I was created to fulfill a function and I failed in it. I negated my own existence.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“during this century (the twentieth) we have for the first time been dominated by non-interactive forms of entertainment: cinema, radio, recorded music and television. Before they came along all entertainment was interactive: theatre, music, sport - the performers and audience were there together, and even a respectfully silent audience exerted a powerful shaping presence on the unfolding of whatever drama they were there for. We didn't need a special word for interactivity in the same way that we don't (yet) need a special word for people with only one head.

I expect that history will show "normal" mainstream twentieth century media to be the aberration in all this. 'Please, miss, you mean they could only just sit there and watch? They couldn't do anything? Didn't everybody feel terribly isolated or alienated or ignored?'

Yes, child, that's why they all went mad. Before the Restoration.'

What was the Restoration again, please, miss?'

The end of the twentieth century, child. When we started to get interactivity back.”
― Douglas Adams

“The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing devision of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Ford Prefect suppressed a little giggle of evil satisfaction, realized that he had no reason to suppress it, and laughed out loud, a wicked laugh.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.”
― Douglas Adams

“The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Yes it is,' said the Professor. 'Wait—' he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate— 'let it be. It won't be long.'

Richard stared in disbelief. 'You say there's a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?'

The Professor looked blankly at him.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything