Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Trin Tragula—for that was his name—was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or as his wife would have it, an idiot.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“The first letter was a “w,” the second an “e.” Then there was a gap. An “a” followed, then a “p,” an “o,” and an “l.” Marvin paused for a rest. After a few moments they resumed and let him see the “o,” the “g,” the “i,” the “z,” and the “e.” The next two words were “for” and “the.” The last one was a long one, and Marvin needed another rest before he could tackle it. It started with “i,” then “n,” then “c.” Next came an “o” and an “n,” followed by a “v,” an “e,” another “n,” and an “i.” After a final pause, Marvin gathered his strength for the last stretch. He read the “e,” the “n,” the “c,” and at last the final “e,” and staggered back into their arms.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Laser light flickered all over him as if he was a packet of biscuits at a super-market check-out.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Anything that happens, happens.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“When Arthur had been a boy at school, long before the Earth had been demolished, he had used to play football. He had not been at all good at it, and his particular speciality had been scoring own goals in important matches.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It’s all right,’ he insisted, ‘I’m perfectly well. Thought I heard, well, a noise
that startled me. But it was nothing. Just overcome with the tea fumes, I expect”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Arthur had almost given up. That is to say, he was not going to give up. He was absolutely not going to give up. Not now. Not ever. But if he had been the sort of person who was going to give up, this was probably the time he would have done it.”
― Douglas Adams

“It now transpired that the man in front of her didn’t actually have a ticket at all, and the argument then began to range freely and angrily over such topics as the physical appearance of the airline check-in girl, her qualities as a person, theories about her ancestors, speculations as to what surprises the future might have in store for her and the airline for which she worked, and finally lit by chance on the happy subject of the man’s credit card. He didn’t have one.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?” “You ask a glass of water.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
― Douglas Adams, The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide

“You come to me for advice, but you can’t cope with anything you don’t recognize. Hmmm. So we’ll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh? Well, business as usual, I suppose.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?”
― Douglas Adams

“Дюшекът подцопна. Това е действие, което могат да извършват само живи дюшеци в блатата на Скорншелъс Зета, и затова тази дума не е толкова разпространена. Той подцопна някак си симпатично, мърдайки доста хубавото си тяло във водата както си го правеше. Той ангажиращо издуха няколко дреболии под водата. Неговите бели и сини райета кратко просветнаха под един внезапен слаб слънчев лъч, който неочаквано проби мъглата, карайки света наоколо моментално да се огрее на него.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“DIDLING (participal vb.)
The process of trying to work out who did it when reading a whodunnit, and trying to keep your options open so that when you find out you can allow yourself to think that you knew perfectly well who it was all along.”
― Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff

“The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Perhaps I’m old and tired,” he continued, “but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“That sounds perfectly reasonable …” he said in a reassuring tone of voice, wondering who he was trying to reassure.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The courtroom was an austere place, a large dark chamber clearly designed for Justice rather than, for instance, for Pleasure. You wouldn’t hold a dinner party there – at least, not a successful one.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“the actual building was old and dilapidated and remained standing more out of habit than from any inherent structural integrity”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“My God,” complained Arthur, “you’re talking about a positive mental attitude and you haven’t even had your planet demolished today. I woke up this morning and thought I’d have a nice relaxed day, do a bit of reading, brush the dog.… It’s now just after four in the afternoon and I’m already being thrown out of an alien spaceship six light-years from the smoking remains of the Earth!” He spluttered and gurgled as the Vogon tightened his grip.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He had been told that when looking for a good oracle, it was best to find the oracle that other oracles went to.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Why,” said Arthur Dent, “isn’t anyone ever pleased to see us?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it’s vitally important you get away before your phone bill arrives.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“A car, a blue convertible, sleek and desirable, came sweeping west out of Beverly Hills along the, as I understand it, gracious curves of Sunset Boulevard. Anybody seeing such a car would have wanted it. Obviously. It was designed to make you want it. If people had turned out not to want it very much, the makers would have redesigned it and redesigned it until they did. The world is now full of things like this, which is, of course, why everybody is in such a permanent state of want.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I like the cover,” he said. “‘Don’t Panic.’ It’s the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody’s said to me all day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The word was out that maybe, just maybe, a British accent would fit. The hair, the skin tone and the bridgework would have to be up to American network standards, but there had been a lot of British accents up there thanking their mothers for their Oscars, a lot of British accents singing on Broadway, and some unusually big audiences tuning in to British accents in wig on Masterpiece Theatre.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“I suppose you’ll want to see the aliens now,” he said. “Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I’m standing?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy