Douglas Adams > Quotes

“I said 'dear lady,' " explained Ford Prefect, "because I didn't want her to be offended by my implication that she was an ignorant cretin-”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Life was too short, the weather too fine, and the world too full of interesting and exciting pitfalls.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Tips for aliens in New York: ‘Land anywhere, Central Park, anywhere. No one will care, or indeed even notice. ‘Surviving: Get a job as a cab driver immediately. A cab driver’s job is to drive people anywhere they want to go in big yellow machines called taxis. Don’t worry if you don’t know how the machine works and you can’t speak the language, don’t understand the geography or indeed the basic physics of the area, and have large green antennae growing out of your head. Believe me, this is the best way of staying inconspicuous. ‘If your body is really weird try showing it to people in the streets for money.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams

“The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
― Douglas Adams

“Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what’s so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what’s so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. Mr. Prosser wanted to be at point D. Point D wasn’t anywhere in particular, it was just any convenient point a very long way from points A, B and C. He would have a nice little cottage at point D, with axes over the door, and spend a pleasant amount of time at point E, which would be the nearest pub to point D. His wife of course wanted climbing roses, but he wanted axes. He didn’t know why—he just liked axes. He flushed hotly under the derisive grins of the bulldozer drivers.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“One of the things that people who don't know anything about white rhinoceroses find most interesting about them is their colour.
It isn't white.
Not even remotely. It's a rather handsome dark grey. Not even a sort of pale grey that might arguably pass as an off-white, just plain dark grey. People therefore assume that zoologists are either perverse or colour-blind, but it's not that, it's that they are illiterate.
"White" is a mistranslation of the Afrikaans word "weit" meaning "wide", and it refers to the animal's mouth, which is wider than that of the black rhino.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds. However, it does go on to say that what with space being the mindboggling size it is the chances of getting picked up by another ship within those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and nine to one against.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Listen, Ford,” said Zaphod, “everything’s cool and froody.” “You mean everything’s under control.” “No,” said Zaphod, “I do not mean everything’s under control. That would not be cool and froody.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Ten million years, Earthman, can you conceive of that kind of time span? A galactic civilization could grow from a single worm five times over in that time. Gone.” He paused. “Well, that’s bureaucracy for you,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I don't believe there's a horse in your bathroom.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“GENERAL NOTE TO MYSELF - Douglas Adams

Writing isn’t so bad really when you get through the worry. Forget about the worry, just press on. Don’t be embarrassed about the bad bits. Don’t strain at them, give yourself time, you can come back and do it again in the light of what you discover about the story later on. It's better to have pages and pages of material to work through and often maybe find an unexpected shape in that you can then craft and put it for good use, rather than one manically reworked paragraph or sentence.
But writing can be good. You attack it, don’t let it attack you. You can get pleasure out of it. You can certainly do very well for yourself with it...!”
― 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 behaviour. 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 favour of a new one. If they don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn’t know about.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Но маршрут был обнародован для…
– Обнародован? В конце концов мне пришлось спуститься в подвал, чтобы отыскать его!
– Верно, там у нас находится отдел информации.
– С фонариком!
– Наверное, света не было.
– И ступенек тоже!
– Но послушайте, вы ведь нашли план!
– Да, – сказал Артур, – нашел. На дне запертого шкафа в заколоченном туалете. А на двери табличка висела: «Осторожно, леопард!»”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“But it was not in any way a coincidence that today, the day of culmination of the project, the great day of unveiling, the day that the Heart of Gold was finally to be introduced to a marveling Galaxy, was also a great day of culmination for Zaphod Beeblebrox. It was for the sake of this day that he had first decided to run for the presidency, a decision that had sent shock waves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galaxy. Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What's all this, I expect you're thinking, about "the tallest mountain in the world"? Everest, surely, deserves at least an honourable mention in this category? Well, it all depends on your point of view. Certainly, Everest stands a sturdy 29,028 feet above sea level, which is, in its way, impressive. But if you were going to climb Everest, you would probably start, fi you were using a reliable guide, somewhere in the Himalayas. Anywhere in the Himalayas is pretty damn high to start with, and so, to hear some people tell it, it's just a smartish jog to do the last little bit to the actual top of Everest. The way to keep it interesting these days is to do it without oxygen or in your underpants or something.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Writing episodically meant that when I finished one episode I had no idea about what the next one would contain. When, in the twists and turns of the plot, some event suddenly seemed to illuminate things that had gone before, I was as surprised as anyone else.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Deliliği evlerine kiracı almış haneler vardı.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.”
― 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

“Abilene (AB-a-lene) adj. Descriptive of the pleasing coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.”
― Douglas Adams, The Deeper Meaning of Liff

“We started to collect more and more of these words and concepts, and began to realize what an arbitrarily selective work the Oxford English Dictionary is. It simply doesn’t recognize huge wodges of human experience. Like, for instance, standing in the kitchen wondering what you went in there for. Everybody does it, but because there isn’t—or wasn’t—a word for it, everyone thinks it’s something that only they do and that they are therefore more stupid than other people. It is reassuring to realize that everybody is as stupid as you are and that all we are doing when we are standing in the kitchen wondering what we came in here for is “woking.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away, and think this to be normal, is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be,”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Apart from being extremely good-looking in a blondish, willowyish kind of way, she was dressed well in an “I don’t care what I wear, just any old thing that’s lying around” kind of way that relies on being extremely careful about what you leave lying around.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Mr. Beeblebrox, sir,' said the insect in awed wonder, 'you’re so weird you should be in movies.;
'Yeah,' said Zaphod patting the thing on a glittering pink wing, 'and you, baby, should be in real life.' The insect paused for a moment”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“They found a coin and helped him to the telescope. He complained and insulted them, but they helped him look at each individual letter in turn. 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 the 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.

'I think,' he murmured at last from deep within his corroding, rattling thorax, 'I feel good about it.'

The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“But though there are frequent misunderstandings between the Europeans and the Americans, at least we’ve had decades of shared movies and TV to help us get used to each other. Outside those bounds you can’t make any assumptions at all. In China, for instance, the poet James Fenton was once stopped for having a light on his bicycle.

“How would it be,” the police officer asked him severely, “if everybody did that?”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Kilka zakrętów dalej byłem już zabłąkany z kretesem. Jedna ze szkół myślenia radzi w takich wypadkach skonsultowanie się z mapą, lecz ja takim ludziom mówię po prostu: „A co, jeśli się nie ma mapy? A co, jeśli ma się tylko mapę Dordogne?” Moja strategia wygląda tak: znajduję samochód albo najbliższy jego ekwiwalent, który wygląda tak, jakby wiedział, dokąd zmierza, i jadę za nim. Rzadko ląduję tam, gdzie zamierzałem, ale za to często ląduję tam, gdzie powinienem być.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul