Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Life!” urged Fook. “The Universe!” said Lunkwill. “Everything!” they said in chorus.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Wearily I sit here, pain and misery my only companions. And vast intelligence of course. And infinite sorrow.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“The sun was beginning to dry out the mud that Arthur lay in.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Prima di allora non aveva mai capito che la vita ci parla, e che la sua voce dà risposta alle domande che le poniamo di continuo; non aveva mai captato consciamente quella voce, né riconosciuto i suoi toni fino a quel momento in cui la voce gli aveva detto una cosa che non gli aveva mai detto prima, e cioè: - Sì”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“What’s this fish doing in my ear?” “It’s translating for you. It’s a Babel fish. Look it up in the book if you like.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“And that reminds me: Random, I forbid you to marry a Vogon! RANDOM: You what? ARTHUR: Nothing. Just fulfilling a promise I made to myself a long time ago.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Further Radio Scripts

“Many speak of the legendary and gigantic starship Titanic, a majestic and luxurious cruise liner launched from the great shipbuilding asteroid complexes of Artrifactovol some hundreds of years ago now, and with good reason. It was sensationally beautiful, staggeringly huge and more pleasantly equipped than any ship in what now remains of history (see page 113 [on the Campaign for Real Time]) but it had the misfortune to be built in the very earliest days of Improbability Physics, long before this difficult and cussed branch of knowledge was fully, or at all, understood. The designers and engineers decided, in their innocence, to build a prototype Improbability Field into it, which was meant, supposedly, to ensure that it was Infinitely Improbable that anything would ever go wrong with any pan of the ship. They did not realize that because of the quasi-reciprocal and circular nature of all Improbability calculations, anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately. The starship Titanic was a monstrously pretty sight as it lay beached like a silver Arcturan Megavoidwhale among the laserlit tracery of its construction gantries, a brilliant cloud of pins and needles of light against the deep interstellar blackness; but when launched, it did not even manage to complete its very first radio message—an SOS—before undergoing a sudden and gratuitous total existence failure.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“But how are you, metalman?’ said Ford. ‘Very depressed.’ ‘What’s up?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Marvin, ‘I’ve never been there.’ ‘Why,’ said Ford squatting down beside him and shivering, ‘are you lying face down in the dust?’ ‘It’s a very effective way of being wretched,’ said Marvin. ‘Don’t pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“We’re terribly worried about Uncle Henry. He thinks he’s a chicken.’ ‘Well, why don’t you send him to the doctor?’ ‘Well, we would, only we need the eggs.’ ” Standish stared at her as if a small but perfectly formed elderberry tree had suddenly sprung unbidden from the bridge of her nose. “Say that again,” he said in a small, shocked voice. “What, all of it?” “All of it.” Kate stuck her fist on her hip and said it again, doing the voices with a bit more dash and Southern accents this time. “That’s brilliant,” Standish breathed when she had done. “You must have heard it before,” she said, a little surprised by this response. “It’s an old joke.” “No,” he said, “I have not. We need the eggs. We need the eggs. We need the eggs. ‘We can’t send him to the doctor because we need the eggs.’ An astounding insight into the central paradoxes of the human condition and of our indefatigable facility for constructing adaptive rationales to account for it. Good God.” Kate”
― 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

“In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“This,” said Slartibartfast, “is where we make most of our planets, you see.” “You mean,” said Arthur, trying to form the words, “you mean you’re starting it all up again now?” “No no, good heavens, no,” exclaimed the old man, “no, the Galaxy isn’t nearly rich enough to support us yet. No, we’ve been awakened to perform just one extraordinary commission for very … special clients from another dimension. It may interest you … there in the distance in front of us.” Arthur followed the old man’s finger till he was able to pick out the floating structure he was pointing out. It was indeed the only one of the many structures that betrayed any sign of activity about it, though this was more a subliminal impression than anything one could put one’s finger on. At that moment, however, a flash of light arced through the structure and revealed in stark relief the patterns that were formed on the dark sphere within. 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. Part of his brain told him that he knew perfectly well what he was looking at and what the shapes represented while another quite sensibly refused to countenance the idea and abdicated responsibility for any further thinking in that direction. The flash came again, and this time there could be no doubt. “The Earth …” whispered Arthur. “Well, the Earth Mark Two in fact,” said Slartibartfast cheerfully. “We’re making a copy from our original blueprints.” There was a pause. “Are you trying to tell me,” said Arthur, slowly and with control, “that you originally … made the Earth?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance. He didn’t know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“...just as discretion was the better part of valor, so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in the closet.”
― Douglas Adams

“Try and understand his problem,” insisted Ford. “Here he is, poor lad, his entire life’s work is stamping around, throwing people off spaceships …” “And shouting,” added the guard.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly and quietly as they seated themselves deferentially before the desk,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Hey, kid, you just saved our lives, you know that?"
"Oh, well, it was nothing really..."
"Was it? Oh well, forget it then”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Number Two's eyes narrowed and became what are known in the Shouting and Killing People trade as cold slits, the idea presumably being to give your opponent the impression that you have lost your glasses or are having difficulty keeping awake. Why this is frightening is an, as yet, unsolved problem.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Well. Now you put it like that I suppose …” “Good lad!” encouraged Ford. “But all right,” went on the rumblings, “so what’s the alternative?” “Well,” said Ford, brightly but slowly, “stop doing it, of course! Tell them,” he went on, “you’re not going to do it any more.” He felt he ought to add something to that, but for the moment the guard seemed to have his mind occupied pondering that much. “Eerrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm …” said the guard, “erm, well, that doesn’t sound that great to me.” Ford suddenly felt the moment slipping away. “Now wait a minute,” he said, “that’s just the start, you see, there’s more to it than that, you see ….” But at that moment the guard renewed his grip and continued his original purpose of lugging his prisoners to the airlock. He was obviously quite touched.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“When the girl sitting at the next table looked away for a moment, Dirk leaned over and took her coffee. He knew that he was perfectly safe doing this because she would simply not be able to believe that this had happened. He sat sipping at the lukewarm cup and casting his mind back over the day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“The ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything is: 42”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“In fact it was altogether an odd dog, of uncertain breed, or breeds. It was large and black, but its hair was tufty, its body scrawny and clumsy, and its manner edgy, anxious, verging on the completely neurotic. Whenever it came to a halt for a moment or so, the business of starting up again often seemed to cause it trouble, as if it had difficulty in remembering where it had left each of its legs.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“I gave a speech once,” he said suddenly and apparently unconnectedly. “You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number.” “Er, five,” said the mattress. “Wrong,” said Marvin. “You see?” The mattress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind. It willomied along its entire length sending excited little ripples through its shallow algae-covered pool.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“No voy a ser la marioneta de nadie, mucho menos, de mí mismo.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“if human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Trilogy in Five Parts

“And if you want to pop off for a quick one yourself later on,” said Ford, “we can always cover for you in return.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Es absolutamente demencial... una completa idiotez. Pero lo haremos porque es una estupidez brillante.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyperintelligent 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 Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Suddenly a violent noise leaped at them from no source that he could identify. He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle while fighting off a pack of wolves. “Shush!” said Ford. “Listen, it might be important.” “Im … important?” “It’s the Vogon captain making an announcement on the tannoy.” “You mean that’s how the Vogons talk?” “Listen!” “But I can’t speak Vogon!” “You don’t need to. Just put this fish in your ear.” Ford, with a lightning movement, clapped his hand to Arthur’s ear, and he had the sudden sickening sensation of the fish slithering deep into his aural tract. Gasping with horror he scrabbled at his ear for a second or so, but then slowly turned goggle-eyed with wonder. He was experiencing the aural equivalent of looking at a picture of two black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a picture of a white candlestick. Or of looking at a lot of colored dots on a piece of paper which suddenly resolve themselves into the figure six and mean that your optician is going to charge you a lot of money for a new pair of glasses. He was still listening to the howling gargles, he knew that, only now it had somehow taken on the semblance of perfectly straightforward English. This is what he heard … * Ford Prefect’s original name is only pronounceable in an obscure Betel-geusian dialect, now virtually extinct since the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster of Gal./Sid./Year 03758 which wiped out all the old Praxibetel communities on Betelgeuse Seven. Ford’s father was the only man on the entire planet to survive the Great Collapsing Hrung Disaster, by an extraordinary coincidence that he was never able satisfactorily to explain. The whole episode is shrouded in deep mystery: in fact no one ever knew what a Hrung was nor why it had chosen to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven particularly. Ford’s father, magnanimously waving aside the clouds of suspicion that had inevitably settled around him, came to live on Betelgeuse Five, where he both fathered and uncled Ford; in memory of his now dead race he christened him in the ancient Praxibetel tongue. Because Ford never learned to say his original name, his father eventually died of shame, which is still a terminal disease in some parts of the Galaxy. The other kids at school nicknamed him Ix, which in the language of Betelgeuse Five translates as “boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make fools of themselves in public.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy