Douglas Adams > Quotes

“He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose, and it did at least keep him on the move.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Trying to predict the future is a mug’s game. But increasingly it’s a game we all have to play because the world is changing so fast and we need to have some sort of idea of what the future’s actually going to be like because we are going to have to live there, probably next week.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Arthur said brightly, “Actually I quite liked it.” Ford turned and gaped. Here was an approach that had quite simply not occurred to him. The Vogon raised a surprised eyebrow that effectively obscured his nose and was therefore no bad thing. “Oh good …” he whirred, in considerable astonishment. “Oh yes,” said Arthur, “I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.” Ford continued to stare at him, slowly organizing his thoughts around this totally new concept. Were they really going to be able to bareface their way out of this? “Yes, do continue …” invited the Vogon. “Oh … and, er … interesting rhythmic devices too,” continued Arthur, “which seemed to counterpoint the … er … er …” he floundered. Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding “… counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the … er …” He floundered too, but Arthur was ready again. “… humanity of the …” “Vogonity,” Ford hissed at him. “Ah yes, Vogonity—sorry—of the poet’s compassionate soul”—Arthur felt he was on the homestretch now—“which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other”—he was reaching a triumphant crescendo—“and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into … into … er …” (which suddenly gave out on him). Ford leaped in with the coup de grace: “Into whatever it was the poem was about!” he yelled. Out of the corner of his mouth: “Well done, Arthur, that was very good.” The Vogon perused them. For a moment his embittered racial soul had been touched, but he thought no—too little too late. His voice took on the quality of a cat snagging brushed nylon. “So what you’re saying is that I write poetry because underneath my mean callous heartless exterior I really just want to be loved,” he said. He paused, “Is that right?” Ford laughed a nervous laugh. “Well, I mean, yes,” he said, “don’t we all, deep down, you know … er …” The Vogon stood up. “No, well, you’re completely wrong,” he said, “I just write poetry to throw my mean callous heartless exterior into sharp relief. I’m going to throw you off the ship anyway. Guard! Take the prisoners to number three airlock and throw them out!” “What?” shouted Ford. A huge young Vogon guard stepped forward and yanked them out of their straps with his huge blubbery arms. “You can’t throw us into space,” yelled Ford, “we’re trying to write a book.” “Resistance is useless!” shouted the Vogon guard back at him. It was the first phrase he’d learned when he joined the Vogon Guard Corps.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Damn and blast British Telecom," shouted Dirk, the words coming easily from force of habit.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Same as you, Arthur. I hitched a ride. After all, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics it was either that or back to the dole queue on Monday. Sorry I missed the Wednesday lunch date, but I was in a black hole all morning.”
― Douglas Adams, The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts

“Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and “maximum-capacity-eight-persons" jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.
This is because they operate on the curious principle of “defocused temporal perception.” In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing and making friends that people were previously forced to do while waiting for elevators.
Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.
An impoverished hitchhiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counselor for neurotic elevators.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I've just had an unhappy love affair, so I don't see why anybody else should have a good time.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The simple truth is that interstellar distance will not fit the human imagination.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“But unless we determine to take action,' said the old man querulously, as if struggling against something deeply insouciant in his nature, 'then we shall all be destroyed, we shall all die. Surely we care about that?' 'Not enough to want to get killed over it,' said Ford.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Freedom," he said out loud... "I can't cope with it"..”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“We can’t win against obsession. They care, we don’t. They win.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“Arthur lay in startled stillness on the acceleration couch. He wasn't certain whether he had just got space-sickness or religion.”
― Douglas Adams, Life the Universe and Everything - The Folio Society Edition

“Gilks sighed. ‘You’re a clever man, Cjelli, I grant you that,’ he said, ‘but you make the same
mistake a lot of clever people do of thinking everyone else is stupid.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“I'm convinced that Bach is the greatest genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy.”
― Douglas Adams

“Where do you get the inspiration for your books?

I tell myself I can't have another cup of coffee till I've thought of an idea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“I thought you must be dead …” he said simply.
“So did I for a while,” said Ford, “and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Listen, you machine,” he said, “you claim you can synthesize any drink in existence, so why do you keep giving me the same undrinkable stuff?”
“Nutrition and pleasurable sense data,” burbled the machine. “Share and Enjoy.”
“It tastes filthy!”
“If you have enjoyed the experience of this drink,” continued the machine, “why not share it with your friends?”
“Because,” said Arthur tartly, “I want to keep them. Will you try to comprehend what I’m telling you? That drink …”
“That drink,” said the machine sweetly, “was individually tailored to meet your personal requirements for nutrition and pleasure.”
“Ah,” said Arthur, “so I’m a masochist on a diet am I?”
“Share and Enjoy.”
“Oh, shut up.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Being virtually killed by a virtual laser in a virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are.”
― Douglas Adams

“I wonder who this ship belongs to anyway," said Arthur.
"Me," said Zaphod.
"No. Who it really belongs to."
"Really me," insisted Zaphod. "Look, property is theft, right? Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, okay?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not by reliable witnesses.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“An international power supply is the device which means it doesn't matter what country you're in, or even if you know what country you're in (more of a problem than you might suspect) - you just plug your Mac in and it figures it out for itself. We call this principle Plug and Play. Or at least, Microsoft calls it that because it hasn't got it yet. In the Mac world we've had it for so long we didn't even think of giving it a name.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore. Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.
For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire "intelligent" population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backwards and forwards through time in a most improbable fashion. Somewhere in the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns. These patterns quickly learnt to copy themselves (this was part of what was so extraordinary about the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to. That was how life began in the Universe.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Where do you get inspiration for your books?
I tell myself I can't have another cup of coffee till I thought of an idea.”
― Douglas Adams

“That is really amazing.' he said. 'That really is truly amazing. That is so amazingly amazing I think I'd like to steal it.”
― Douglas Adams

“Arthur followed Ford’s finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn’t register, then his mind nearly blew up. “What? Harmless? Is that all it’s got to say? Harmless! One word!” Ford shrugged. “Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book’s microprocessors,” he said, “and no one knew much about the Earth, of course.” “Well, for God’s sake, I hope you managed to rectify that a bit.” “Oh yes, well, I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it’s still an improvement.” “And what does it say now?” asked Arthur. “Mostly harmless,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“A hole had just appeared in the Galaxy. It was exactly a nothingth of a second long, a nothingth of an inch wide, and quite a lot of millions of light-years from end to end.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?” “How much?” said Arthur. “None at all,” said Mr. Prosser,”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“One of the problems, and it's one which is obviously going to get worse, is that all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn't leave in the first place, and because of all the business about selective breeding and regressive genes and so on, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical partygoers, or gibbering idiots, or, more and more frequently, both.”
― Duglass Adamss, Life, the Universe and Everything

“It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul