Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Vogons are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds,”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“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 Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“People often ask me where I get my ideas from, sometimes as often as eighty-seven times a day. This is a well-known hazard for writers, and the correct response to the question is first to breathe deeply, steady your heartbeat, fill your mind with peaceful, calming images of birdsong and buttercups in spring meadows, and then try to say, “Well, it’s very interesting you ask that . . .” before breaking down and starting to whimper uncontrollably. The fact is that I don’t know where ideas come from, or even where to look for them. Nor does any writer. This is not quite true, in fact. If you were writing a book on the mating habits of pigs, you’d probably pick up a few goodish ideas by hanging around a barnyard in a plastic mac, but if fiction is your line, then the only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“According to her watch it was shortly after three o’clock, and according to everything else it was night-time.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“the only thing that really gets hurt when you try and change time is yourself.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Dikkatsizce söylenen sözlerin hayatlara mal olduğu hiç şüphesiz iyi bilinir, ama sorunun gerçek boyutu her zaman tam olarak anlaşılamaz.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“And at the end they traveled again. There was a time when Arthur Dent would not. He said that the Bistromathic Drive had revealed to him that time and distance were one, that mind and Universe were one, that perception and reality were one, and that the more one traveled the more one stayed in one place, and that what with one thing and another he would rather just stay put for a while and sort it all out in his mind, which was now at one with the Universe so it shouldn’t take too long and he could get a good rest afterward, put in a little flying practice and learn to cook, which he had always meant to do.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“I don’t like the idea of missionaries. In fact the whole business fills me with fear and alarm. I don’t believe in God, or at least not in the one we’ve invented for ourselves in England to fulfil our peculiarly English needs, and certainly not in the ones they’ve invented in America who supply their servants with toupees, television stations and, most importantly, toll-free telephone numbers. I wish that people who did believe in such things would keep them to themselves and not export them to the developing world.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance To See

“I am fascinated by religion. (That's a completely different thing from believing in it!) It has had such an incalculably huge effect on human affairs. What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it? I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“I can even work out your personality problems to ten decimal places if it will help.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Eight hours West sat a man alone on a beach mourning an inexplicable loss. He could only think of his loss in little packets of grief at a time, because the whole thing was too great to be borne.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“CLUN (n.) A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you.”
― Douglas Adams, The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be

“We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But that's not the point!" raged Ford "The point is that I am now a perfectly safe penguin, and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?”
― Douglas Adams

“One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in 'It's a nice day,' or 'You're very tall,' or 'Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right?' At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behavior. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The only thing we can do now,” said Benjy, crouching and stroking his whiskers in thought, “is to try and fake a question, invent one that will sound plausible.”
“Difficult,” said Frankie. He thought. “How about, What's yellow and dangerous?”
Benjy considered this for a moment.
“No, no good,” he said. “Doesn't fit the answer.”
They sank into silence for a few seconds.
“All right,” said Benjy. “What do you get if you multiply six by seven?”
“No, no, too literal, too factual,” said Frankie, “wouldn't sustain the punter's interest.”
Again they thought.
Then Frankie said: “Here's a thought. How many roads must a man walk down?”
“Ah!” said Benjy. “Aha, now that does sound promising!” He rolled the phrase around a little. “Yes,” he said, “that's excellent! Sounds very significant without actually tying you down to meaning anything at all. How many roads must a man walk down? Forty-two. Excellent, excellent, that'll fox 'em. Frankie, baby, we are made!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“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