Douglas Adams > Quotes

“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

“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