Douglas Adams > Quotes

“And do we also have, do we have … a party of minor deities from the Halls of Asgard?” Away to his right came a rumble of thunder. Lightning arced across the stage. A small group of hairy men with helmets sat looking very pleased with themselves, and raised their glasses to him.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyper-intelligent pandimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research program…. Let me tell you the whole story. It’ll take a little time.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax. You will be sent for soon.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Nor was it the bewildering array of instruments that crowded the long circumferential wall around them.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Sometimes if you receive an answer, the question might be taken away.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What, are you crazy?” “It’s a possibility I haven’t ruled out yet,” said Zaphod quietly. “I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“My name?’ said the old man, and the same distant sadness came into his face again. He paused. ‘My name,’ he said, ‘. . . is Slartibartfast.’ Arthur practically choked. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he spluttered. ‘Slartibartfast,’ repeated the old man quietly. ‘Slartibartfast?’ The old man looked at him gravely. ‘I said it wasn’t important,’ he said.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“the great thing about being the only species that makes a distiction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Don't worry. Everything is getting nicely out of control.”
― Douglas Adams

“Ford had his own code of ethics. It wasn’t much of one, but it was his and he stuck by it, more or less. One rule he made was never to buy his own drinks. He”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Well, I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I'm afraid where you begin to suspect that if there's any real truth, it's that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Marvin the Paranoid Android”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It folded back on itself like something that M. C. Escher, had he been given to hard nights on the town, which it is no part of this narrative’s purpose to suggest was the case, though it is sometimes hard, looking at his pictures, particularly the one with all the awkward steps, not to wonder, might have dreamed up after having been on one, for the little chandeliers which should have been hanging inside were on the outside pointing up.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Si los seres humanos no dejan de hacer ejercicio con los labios, su cerebro empieza a funcionar.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“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

“Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Боюсь, – проговорил он наконец, – что Вопрос и Ответ – вещи взаимоисключающие. Знание одного в силу самой логики исключает знание другого. В рамках одной Вселенной невозможно знание Вопроса и Ответа сразу.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“I’m a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a 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. Most scientists forget that.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you—daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“We talked about how easy it was to make the mistake of anthropomorphising animals, and projecting our own feelings and perceptions on to them, where they were inappropriate and didn't fit. We simply had no idea what it was like being an extremely large lizard, and neither for that matter did the lizard, becuase it was not self-conscious about being an extremely large lizard, it just got on with the business of being one. To react with revulsion to its behavior was to make the mistake of applying criteria that are only appropriate to the business of being human. We each make our own accommodation with the world and learn to survive in it in different ways. What works as successful behaviour for us does not work for lizards, and vice versa.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“This bowl was brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell.” And then the sound of long, heavy, perfectly gray bodies rolling away into an unknown fathomless deep, quietly giggling.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“On a waiter’s check pad,” said Slartibartfast, “reality and unreality collide on such a fundamental level that each becomes the other and anything is possible, within certain parameters.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He almost danced to the fridge, found the three least hairy things in it, put them on a plate and watched them intently for two minutes. Since they made no attempt to move within that time he called them breakfast and ate them.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this - ‘If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Ford stared at Arthur, and Arthur was astonished to find his will beginning to weaken. He didn’t realize that this was because of an old drinking game that Ford learned to play in the hyper-space ports that served the madranite mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Predicting the future is a mug’s game, but any game is improved when you can actually keep the score.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Arthur! You're safe!" A voice cried.
"Am I?" said Arthur, rather startled. "Oh, good.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy