Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Ford was beginning to behave rather strangely, or rather not actually beginning to behave strangely but beginning to behave in a way that was strangely different from the other strange ways in which he more regularly behaved.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“And the most interesting natural structure?

A giant, two-thousand-mile-long fish in orbit around Jupiter, according to a reliable report in the Weekly World News. The photograph was very convincing, and I'm only surprised that more-reputable journals like New Scientist, or even just The Sun, haven't followed up with more details. We should be told.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“You know,' he said, sitting back, reflectively, 'it's at times like this that you kind of wonder if it's worth worrying about the fabric of space-time and the causal integrity of the multidimensional probability matrix and the potential collapse of all waveforms in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash and all that sort of stuff that's been bugging me.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Zaphod left the controls for Ford to figure out, and lurched over to Arthur.

"Look, Earthman," he said angrily, "you've got a job to do, right? The Question to the Ultimate Answer, right?"

"What, that thing?" said Arthur, "I thought we'd forgotten about that."

"Not me, baby. Like the mice said, it's worth a lot of money in the right quarters. And it's all locked up in that head thing of yours."

"Yes but ..."

"But nothing! Think about it. The Meaning of Life! We get our fingers on that we can hold every shrink in the Galaxy up to ransom, and that's worth a bundle. I owe mine a mint."

Arthur took a deep breath without much enthusiasm.

"Alright," he said, "but where do we start? How should I know? They say the Ultimate Answer or whatever is Forty-two, how am I supposed to know what the question is? It could be anything. I mean, what's six times seven?"

Zaphod looked at him hard for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with excitement.

"Forty-two!" he cried.

Arthur wiped his palm across his forehead.

"Yes," he said patiently, "I know that."

Zaphod's faces fell.

"I'm just saying that the question could be anything at all," said Arthur, "and I don't see how I am meant to know.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won’t see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“No," he said, "look, it's very, very simple ... all I want ... is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen." And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn't get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company.
"So that's it, is it?" said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
"Yes," said Arthur, "that is what I want."
"You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?"
"Er, yes. With milk."
"Squirted out of a cow?"
"Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose ...”
― Douglas Adams

“There is no "tropical island paradise" I know of which remotely matches up to the fantasy ideal that such a phrase is meant to conjure up, or even to what we find described in holiday brochures. It's natural to put this down to the discrepancy we are all used to finding between what advertisers promise and what the real world delivers. It doesn't surprise us much any more. So it can come as a shock to realise that the world we hear described by travellers of previous centuries (or even previous decades) and biologists of today really did exist. The state it's in now is only the result of what we've done to it, and the mildness of the disappointment we feel when we arrive somewhere and find that it's a bit tatty is only a measure of how far our own expectations have been degraded and how little we understand what we've lost. The people who do understand what we've lost are the ones who are rushing around in a frenzy trying to save the bits that are left.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Trin Tragula—for that was his name—was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.”

Excerpt From: Adams, Douglas. “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.” Random House Publishing Group, 2010-09-29. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Three pints?” said Arthur. “At lunchtime?” The man next to Ford grinned and nodded happily. Ford ignored him. He said, “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Now see here, Guy,” said the voice, “you’re not dealing with any dumb two-bit trigger pumping morons with low hair-lines, little piggy eyes and no conversation, we’re a couple of intelligent caring guys that you’d probably quite like if you met us socially! I don’t go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it afterward in seedy space-rangers bars, like some cops I could mention! I go around shooting people gratuitously and then I agonize about it afterward for hours to my girlfriend!”
“And I write novels!” chimed in the other cop. “Though I haven’t had any of them published yet, so I better warn you, I’m in a meeeean mood!”
― Douglas Adams

“Marvin started his ironical humming again. Zaphod hit him and he shut up.”
― Douglas Adams

“Как да напуснем планетата:
1. Обадете се на НАСА.Номерът им е (713) 493 - 3111.Обяснете им,че се налага да се махнете спешно оттук.
2. Ако откажат да съдействат,обадете се на някой познат в Белия дом - (202) 456 - 1414 - да бутне едно рамо при момчетата от НАСА.
3. Ако нямате познати в Белия дом,обадете се в Кремъл (поискайте международен разговор с (0107 - 095 - 295 - 9051).Те и те нямат приятели в НАСА(поне не такива,които да си струват обсъждането),но май имат известно влияние,така че пробвайте.
5. Ако и това не стане,поискайте съвет от папата.Телефонът му е (011 - 39 - 6 - 6982) и ,доколото знам, телефонната му централа е безотказна.
6. Ако всичките ви опити пропаднат,стопирайте някоя летяща чиния и им обяснете,че трябва на всяка цена да се махнете преди да е дошла сметката ви за телефон”
― Duglass Adamss, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Rule Six: The winning team shall be the first team that wins.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“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.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Fifteen seconds later he left the house, five hours late but moving fast.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“She thought that trying to live life according to any plan you actually work out is like trying to buy ingredients for a recipe from the supermarket. You get one of those trolleys which simply will not go in the direction you push it and end up just having to buy completely different stuff. What do you do with it? What do you do with the recipe? She didn't know.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“On the wall was a Duran Duran poster on which someone had scrawled in fat red felt tip, "Take this down please."
Beneath that another hand had scrawled, "No."
Beneath that again the first hand had written, ""I insist that you take it down."
Beneath that the second hand had written, "Won't!"
Beneath that - "You're fired."
Beneath that - "Good!"
And there the matter appeared to have rested.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Rob McKenna was a miserable bastard and he knew it because he'd had a lot of people point it out to him over the years and he saw no reason to disagree with them except the obvious one which was that he liked disagreeing with people, particularly people he disliked, which included, at the last count, everybody.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“He had rather liked Zaphod Beeblebrox in a strange sort of way. He was clearly a man of many quallities, even if they were mostly bad ones.”
― Douglas Adams

“It's guff. It doesn't advance the action. It makes for nice fat books such as the American market thrives on, but it doesn't actually get you anywhere.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“And what’s happened to the Earth?” “Ah. It’s been demolished.” “Has it,” said Arthur levelly. “Yes. It just boiled away into space.” “Look,” said Arthur, “I’m a bit upset about that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“...his horoscope had been pretty misleading as well. It had mentioned an unusual amount of planetary activity in his sign and had urged him to differentiate between what he thought he wanted and what he actually needed, and suggested that he should tackle emotional or work problems with determination and complete honesty, but had inexplicably failed to mention that he would be dead before the day was out.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“I think that the BBC’s attitude toward the show while it was in production was very similar to that which Macbeth had toward murdering people—initial doubts, followed by cautious enthusiasm and then greater and greater alarm at the sheer scale of the undertaking and still no end in sight.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Well, sir, I think it's just as well that they are being phased out of the war effort, and that we are now going to detonate the supernova bomb. In the very short time since we were released from the time envelope-'

'Get to the point'

'The robots aren't enjoying it, sir.'

'what'

'The war sir, it seems to be getting them down there's a certain world-weariness.'

'Well, that's all right, they're meant to be helping to destroy it.'

'yes, well they're finding it difficult, sir. They are afflicted with a certain lassitude. They're just finding it hard to get behind the job. They lack oomph.'

'What are you trying to say?'

'Well, I think they're very depressed about something, sir.'

'What on Krikkit are you talking about?'

'Well, in a few skirmishes they've recently, it seems that they go into battle, raise their weapons to fire and suddenly think, why bother? What, cosmically speaking, is it all about? And they just seem to get a little tired and a little grim.'

'And then what do they do?'

'Er, quadratic equations mostly, sir. Fiendishly difficult ones by all accounts. And then they sulk.'

'Sulk?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Whoever heard of a robot sulking?'

'I don't know, sir.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“I was feeling pretty raw about my own species because we presume to draw a distinction between what we call good and what we call evil. We find our images of what we call evil in things outside ourselves, in creatures that know nothing of such matters, so that we can feel revolted by them, and, by contrast, good about ourselves.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“My capacity for happiness,’ he added, ‘you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“In the stillness, a fly would not have dared clear it's throat.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe