Douglas Adams > Quotes

“The mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Zaphod Beeblebrox crawled bravely along a tunnel, like the hell of a guy he was. He was very confused, but he continued crawling doggedly anyway because he was that brave.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Nobleness was one word for making a fuss about the trivial inevitabilities of life, but there were others.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“He felt a spasm of excitement because he knew instinctively who it was, or at least knew who it was he wanted it to be, and once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive. Its crew of four were ill as ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics- as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? ‘Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ ”

“I reject that entirely,” said Dirk sharply. “The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbably lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is that it is hopelessly improbable?...The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don’t know about, and...there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Ford looked at him severely.
And no sneaky knocking down Mr Dent's house whilst he's away, alright?" he said.
The mere thought," growled Mr Prosser, "hadn't even begun to speculate," he continued, settling himself back, "about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“You know,” said Arthur thoughtfully, “all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.” “No,” said the old man, “that’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Lemon??!!”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion is the better part of valor, so was cowardice is the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a closet.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“You're a jerk,' repeated the alien, 'a complete asshole.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Fiordland, a vast tract of mountainous terrain that occupies the south-west corner of South Island, New Zealand, is one of the most astounding pieces of land anywhere on God's earth, and one's first impulse, standing on a cliff top surveying it all, is simply to burst into spontaneous applause.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“The lights were off so that his heads could avoid looking at each other because neither of them was currently a particular engaging sight, nor had they been since he had made the error of looking into his soul.
It had indeed been an error.
It had been late one night-- of course.
It had been a difficult day-- of course.
There had been soulful music playing on the ship's sound system-- of course.
And he had, of course, been slightly drunk.
In other words, all the usual conditions that bring on a bout of soul searching had applied, but it had, nevertheless, clearly been an error.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Dirk turned on the car wipers, which grumbled because they didn't have quite enough rain to wipe away, so he turned them off again. Rain quickly speckled the windscreen. He turned on the wipers again, but they still refused to feel that the exercise was worthwhile, and scraped and squeaked in protest.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away.

During the following weeks Ford Perfect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“For as long as he could remember, he’d suffered from a vague nagging feeling of being not all there.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy's a fun place. You'll need to have this fish in your ear.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“David Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have been there longer than we were, and seen different bits, because most of what we saw in the couple of days we were there sorting out our travel arrangements was awful. It was just the tourist area, i.e., that part of Bali which has been made almost exactly the same as everywhere else in the world for the sake of people who have come all this way to see Bali.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.”
― Douglas Adams

“And then, just when you think that you have experienced all the wonders that this world has to offer, you round a peak and suddenly think you're doing the whole thing over again, but this time on drugs.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“It gives me my headache just trying to think down to your level”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Well the hours are good...' ... 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy