Douglas Adams > Quotes

“He gestured Arthur toward a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus. “It was made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“His head was swimming freestyle, but someone in his stomach was doing the butterfly.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“What’s that?” he yelped. “Don’t worry,” said Ford, “they haven’t started yet.” “Thank God for that,” said Arthur, and relaxed. “It’s probably just your house being knocked down,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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

“Groop I implore thee,” continued the merciless Vogon, “my foonting turlingdromes.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But what about the End of the Universe? We’ll miss the big moment.” “I’ve seen it. It’s rubbish,” said Zaphod, “nothing but a gnab gib.” “A what?” “Opposite of a big bang.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The girl he had dragged along to the pub with him had grown to loathe him dearly over the last hour, and it would probably have been a great satisfaction to her to know that in a minute and a half or so he would suddenly evaporate into a whiff of hydrogen, ozone and carbon monoxide. However, when the moment came she would be too busy evaporating herself to notice it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me,” intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. “A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate—and yet I will design it for you. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called…the Earth.” Phouchg”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“– Ну, сколько у нас спасательных капсул?
– Ни одной.
– Хорошо пересчитал?
– Два раза”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Frank Halford was a master at the school and remembers Adams as “very tall even then, and popular. He wrote an end-of-term play when Doctor Who had just started on television. He called it ‘Doctor Which.’ ” Many years later, Adams did write scripts for Doctor Who. He describes Halford as an inspirational teacher who is still a support. “He once gave me ten out of ten for a story, which was the only time he did throughout his long school career. And even now, when I have a dark night of the soul as a writer and think that I can’t do this anymore, the thing that I reach for is not the fact that I have had best-sellers or huge advances. It is the fact that Frank Halford once gave me ten out of ten, and at some fundamental level I must be able to do it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Bütün bu geldiğim yol, diye düşünüyordu Zaphod, bütün bu belalar, bütün bu plajda-yan-gelip-yatıp-harika-vakit-geçirememeler, peki ama ne için?”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“All except the Hooloovoo were resplendent in their multicolored ceremonial lab coats; the Hooloovoo had been temporarily refracted into a free-standing prism for the occasion. There was a mood of immense excitement thrilling through all of them. Together and between them they had gone to and beyond the furthest limits of physical laws, restructured the fundamental fabric of matter, strained, twisted and broken the laws of possibility and impossibility, but still the greatest excitement of all seemed to be to meet a man with an orange sash round his neck.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Well, there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me,” said Arthur. “Come to mention it, there’s probably a lot I don’t know about me either.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“They plunged through heavy walls of sound, mountains of archaic thought, valleys of mood music, bad shoe sessions and footling bats and suddenly heard a girl's voice.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I have to own up and say that, much as I love my PowerBook, which now does about 97.8 percent of what I used to use the lumbering old desktop dinosaurs for, I’ve given up trying to use it on planes. Yes, yes, I know that there are sorts of power-user strategies you can use to extend your battery life—dimming modes, RAM disks, processor-resting, and so on—but the point is that I really can’t be bothered. I’m perfectly capable of just reading the in-flight magazine if I want to be irritated.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“I always thought that about the Garden of Eden story," said Ford.
"Eh?"
"Garden of Eden. Tree. Apple. That bit, remember?"
"Yes of course I do."
"Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting `Gotcha'. It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it."
"Why not?"
"Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end."
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind, eat the fruit.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’ “‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’ “‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. “‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Do you think they came today?' he said. 'I do. There’s mud on the floor, cigarettes and whisky on the table, fish on a plate for you and a memory of them in my mind. Hardly conclusive evidence I know, but then all evidence is circumstantial.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Your arrival on the planet has caused considerable excitement. It has already been hailed, so I gather, as the third most improbable event in the history of the Universe.”
“What were the first two?”
“Oh, probably just coincidences,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts

“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. Zaphod”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we’re straight out of a job, aren’t we?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I just thought you’d like to see,’ he said, ‘what angels wear on their feet. Just out of curiosity. I’m not trying to prove anything, by the way. 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. I’ll show you something to demonstrate that later. So, the other reason I call myself Wonko the Sane is so that people will think I am a fool. That allows me to say what I see when I see it. You can’t possibly be a scientist if you mind people thinking that you’re a fool.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy of Five

“He hadn't realized that life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers for the questions you continually ask of it, had never consciously detected it or recognized its tones until it now said something it had never said to him before, which was "yes".”
― Douglas Adams

“I love deadlines,” he said once. “I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.”) He died in May 2001—too young. His”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“elegant gazelle-like creatures with silken coats and dewy eyes which the Vogons would catch and sit on. They were no use as transport because their backs would snap instantly, but the Vogons sat on them anyway.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“When I was a kid,'' she said. ``These sort of stories always start like this, don't they, `When I was a kid ...' Anyway. This is the bit where the girl suddenly says, `When I was a kid' and starts to unburden herself. We have got to that bit. When I was a kid I had this picture hanging over the foot of my bed ... What do you think of it so far?''

``I like it. I think it's moving well. You're getting the bedroom interest in nice and early. We could probably do with some development with the picture.''

``It was one of those pictures that children are supposed to like,'' she said, ``but don't. Full of endearing little animals doing endearing things, you know?''

``I know. I was plagued with them too. Rabbits in waistcoats.''

``Exactly. These rabbits were in fact on a raft, as were assorted rats and owls. There may even have been a reindeer.''

``On the raft.''

``On the raft. And a boy was sitting on the raft.''

``Among the rabbits in waistcoats and the owls and the reindeer.''

``Precisely there. A boy of the cheery gypsy ragamuffin variety.''

``Ugh.''

``The picture worried me, I must say. There was an otter swimming in front of the raft, and I used to lie awake at night worrying about this otter having to pull the raft, with all these wretched animals on it who shouldn't even be on a raft, and the otter had such a thin tail to pull it with I thought it must hurt pulling it all the time. Worried me. Not badly, but just vaguely, all the time.

``Then one day --- and remember I'd been looking at this picture every night for years --- I suddenly noticed that the raft had a sail. Never seen it before. The otter was fine, he was just swimming along.''

She shrugged.

``Good story?'' she said.

``Ends weakly,'' said Arthur, ``leaves the audience crying `Yes, but what of it?' Fine up till there, but needs a final sting before the credits.''

Fenchurch laughed and hugged her legs.

``It was just such a sudden revelation, years of almost unnoticed worry just dropping away, like taking off heavy weights, like black and white becoming colour, like a dry stick suddenly being watered. The sudden shift of perspective that says `Put away your worries, the world is a good and perfect place. It is in fact very easy.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The Babel fish,’ said The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quietly, ‘is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It's just that in your case the consequences of not knowing any of this stuff are particularly terrible, but then, hey, that's just the way the cookie gets completely stomped on and obliterated.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless