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

“The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Richard reflected that Dirk's was a face into which too much had already been put. What with that and the amount he talked, the traffic through his mouth was almost incessant. His ears, on the other hand, remained almost totally unused in normal conversation.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Time travel? I believe there are people regularly travelling back from the future and interfering with our lives on a daily basis. The evidence is all around us. I’m talking about how every time we make an insurance claim we discover that somehow mysteriously the exact thing we’re claiming for is now precisely excluded from our policy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“coincidences are strange and dangerous things. Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you’re innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police—who already think you’re guilty—will find it for you.”
― 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

“The driver wound down the window and leaned out. "Had a crash then?" he shouted at them. "Yes." "Ha!" he said and drove on”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Дюшекът гълброкна. Това е шум, издаван от жив блатообитаващ дюшек, който е дълбоко покъртен от историята за нечия лична трагедия, която току-що е чул. Думата също така, според Ултрапълния Максимегалонски Речник на Всеки Език, Съществувал Някога, може да означава „шум, издаден от Господаря Възвишен Санвалвуаг от Холлоп, когато открил, че втора поредна година забравя за рождения ден на жена си“. Но тъй като е съществувал само един Господар Възвишен Санвалвуаг от Холлоп и той никога не се оженил, думата се употребява само в отрицателен или спекулативен смисъл, и има още едно вечно надигащо се мнение, което гласи, че Ултрапълният Максимегалонски Речник не заслужава кервана от камиони, които са необходими за превозването на микросбитото му издание до потребителя. Странно, но в Речникът не се споменава думата „подпляскващо“, което означава „по образец на някой, който подплясква”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Don’t pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me.” “No, I don’t.” “Yes, you do, everybody does. It’s part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me. Even robots hate me. If you just ignore me I expect I shall probably go away.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He turned left, therefore, in the hope of finding better fortune in that direction, but after a while lost his nerve and turned a speculative right, and then chanced another exploratory left, and after a few more such maneuvers was thoroughly lost.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“She was a rapidly rising anchor. She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“She wish she knew what it was she was trying not to think about”
― Douglas Adams

“Şimdi ölmek istemiyorum!" diye bağırdı."Hala başım ağrıyor!Cennete baş ağrısıyla gitmek istemiyorum,bütün aksiliğim üstümde olacak ve Cennet'in tadını çıkaramayacağım!”
― Douglas Adams

“This friend of his had first arrived on the planet Earth some fifteen Earth years previously, and he had worked hard to blend himself into Earth society—with, it must be said, some success. For instance, he had spent those fifteen years pretending to be an out-of-work actor, which was plausible enough.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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

“And as they drifter up their minds sang with the ecstatic knowledge that either what they were doing was completely and utterly and totally impossible or that physics had a lot of catching up to do.
Physics shook its head and, looking the other way, concentrated on keeping the cards going along the Euston Road and out over towards the Westway flyover, on keeping the street lights lit and on making sure that when somebody on Baker Street dropped a cheeseburger it went splat on the ground.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish