Douglas Adams > Quotes

“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

“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

“Eres muy raro - dijo.
- No, soy muy corriente - dijo Arthur -, pero me han pasado cosas muy raras.
Podría decirse que soy más diferenciado que diferente.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“That ship hated me,'' he said dejectedly, indicating the policecraft.

"That ship?'' said Ford in sudden excitement. "What happened to it? Do you know?''

"It hated me because I talked to it.''

"You talked to it?'' exclaimed Ford. "What do you mean you talked to it?''

"Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it,'' said Marvin.

"And what happened?'' pressed Ford.

"It committed suicide,'' said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.”
― Douglas Adams

“You have carjacking back in old England?”

“Carjacking?”

“People walk up to you, steal your car.”

“No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er...”

Joe barked with contempt.

“The thing is,” explained Dirk, “in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn't be able to drive it away.”

“Some kinda fancy device?”

“No, just traffic,” said Dirk.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Albacete (AL-ba-seet) n. A single surprisingly long hair growing in the middle of nowhere.”
― Douglas Adams, The Deeper Meaning of Liff

“Oh, and Zaphod?"
"Er, yeah?"
"If you ever find you need help again, you know, if you're in trouble, need a hand out of a tight corner..."
"Yeah?"
"Please don't hesitate to get lost.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I’ve had the sort of day that would make Saint Francis of Assisi kick babies.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Antananarivo is pronounced Tananarive, and for much of this century has been spelt that way as well. When the French took over Madagascar at the end of the last century (colonised is probably too kind a word for moving in on a country that was doing perfectly well for itself but which the French simply took a fancy to), they were impatient with the curious Malagasy habit of not bothering to pronounce the first and last syllables of place names. They decided, in their rational Gallic way, that if that was how the names were pronounced then they could damn well be spelt that way too. It would be rather as if someone had taken over England and told us that from now on we would be spelling Leicester 'Lester' and liking it. We might be forced to spell it that way, but we wouldn't like it, and neither did the Malagasy. As soon as they managed to divest themselves of French rule, in 1960, they promptly reinstated all the old spellings and just kept the cooking and the bureaucracy.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Sorry, can I interrupt you a moment, Peter, and say that the sofa has just vanished.’ ‘So it has. Well, that’s one mystery less.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“Trilllian had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Here’s an interesting little notion. Did you realize that most people’s lives are governed by telephone numbers?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Patterns that Arthur knew, rough blobby shapes that were as familiar to him as the shapes of words, part of the furniture of his mind. For a few seconds he sat in stunned silence as the images rushed around his mind and tried to find somewhere to settle down and make sense...”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“had a memory that he himself had once compared to the Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly, in that it was colorful, flitted prettily hither and thither, and was”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“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