Douglas Adams > Quotes

“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 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...If humans 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 favor of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“It's easy to think that as a result of the extinction of the dodo we are now sadder and wiser, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that we are merely sadder and better informed.”
― Douglas Adams

“At intervals along the walls the tiles gave way to large mosaics—simple angular patterns in bright colors. Trillian stopped and studied one of them but could not interpret any sense in them. She called to Zaphod. “Hey, have you any idea what these strange symbols are?” “I think they’re just strange symbols of some kind,” said Zaphod, hardly glancing back. Trillian shrugged and hurried after him.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“BOTOLPHS (pl.n) Huge benign tumours which archdeacons and old chemistry teachers affect to wear on the sides of their noses.”
― Douglas Adams, The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be

“This is not her story. But it is the story of that terrible, stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He began to despise the Universe in general, and everybody in it in particular.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What's that, forgone conclusion then you reckon, sir?' said the barman. 'Arsenal without a chance?'
'No, no,' said Ford, 'it's just that the world's about to end.”
― Douglas Adams

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

“You see, if I keep it up I can eventually get promoted to Senior Shouting Officer, and there aren’t usually many vacancies for nonshouting and nonpushing-people-about officers, so I think I’d better stick to what I know.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“En todos los amaneceres hay un momento en que la luz flota y la magia es posible. La
creación contuvo el aliento.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole galaxy of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just two things: the world he was born on and the woman he loved.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“One thing" he further added "has suddenly ceased to lead to another”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain. The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The Sandwich Maker would pass what he had made to his assistant who would then add a few slices of newcumber and fladish and a touch of splagberry sauce, and then apply the topmost layer of bread and cut the sandwich with a fourth and altogether plainer knife. It was not that these were not also skilful operations, but they were lesser skills to be performed by a dedicated apprentice who would one day, when the Sandwich Maker finally laid down his tools, take over from him. It was an exalted position and that apprentice, Drimple, was the envy of his fellows. There were those in the village who were happy chopping wood, those who were content carrying water, but to be the Sandwich Maker was very heaven.

And so the Sandwich Maker sang as he worked.

He was using the last of the year’s salted meat. It was a little past its best now, but still the rich savour of Perfectly Normal Beast meat was something unsurpassed in any of the Sandwich Maker’s previous experience. Next week it was anticipated that the Perfectly Normal Beasts would appear again for their regular migration, whereupon the whole village would once again be plunged into frenetic action: hunting the Beasts, killing perhaps six, maybe even seven dozen of the thousands that thundered past. Then the Beasts must be rapidly butchered and cleaned, with most of the meat salted to keep it through the winter months until the return migration in the spring, which would replenish their supplies.

The very best of the meat would be roasted straight away for the feast that marked the Autumn Passage. The celebrations would last for three days of sheer exuberance, dancing and stories that Old Thrashbarg would tell of how the hunt had gone, stories that he would have been busy sitting making up in his hut while the rest of the village was out doing the actual hunting.

And then the very, very best of the meat would be saved from the feast and delivered cold to the Sandwich Maker. And the Sandwich Maker would exercise on it the skills that he had brought to them from the gods, and make the exquisite Sandwiches of the Third Season, of which the whole village would partake before beginning, the next day, to prepare themselves for the rigours of the coming winter.

Today he was just making ordinary sandwiches, if such delicacies, so lovingly crafted, could ever be called ordinary. Today his assistant was away so the Sandwich Maker was applying his own garnish, which he was happy to do. He was happy with just about everything in fact.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“The teacher usually learns more than the pupils. Isn't that true?
'It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils,' came a low growl from somewhere on the table, 'without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy.”
― Douglas Adams

“What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Never mind,” said Ford. “Rome wasn’t burned in a day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Но ето че един ден — беше четвъртък — близо две хиляди години след като един човек бил прикован за някакво дърво заради това, че разправял колко хубаво би било, ако започнем ей тъй, за разнообразие, да бъдем добри един към друг —”
― Douglas Adams

“Come on,” insisted Zaphod, “I’ve found a way in.” “In?” said Arthur in horror. “Into the interior of the planet! An underground passage. The force of the whale’s impact cracked it open, and that’s where we have to go. Where no man has trod these five million years, into the very depths of time itself….”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The alphabet does not go “A B C D What? When? How?” but it does go “V W X Why? Z.”
― Douglas Adams

“This Introduction to the Introduction to the New Edition is a highly significant one in the history of Introductions. Its presence on these pages means that this book has achieved the World Record for the Number of Introductions in a Book of This Nature. With the addition of this Introduction to the Introduction to the New Edition, The Salmon of Doubt can now claim to have no less than three Introductions, one Prologue, and one Editor’s Note.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

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

“Ford", reče."
"Aha?"
"Šta ta riba radi u mome uhu?"
"Prevodi ti. To je babilonska ribica. Potraži je u knjizi ako hoćeš."
Dobacio mu je "Vodič kroz galaksiju za autostopere" a onda se sklupčao u fetalnu lopticu da se pripremi za skok.
U tom trenutku, Arthurov um se raspao.
Oči su mu se okrenule naopako. Noge su mu procurile kroz vrh glave.
Prostorija oko njega se izravnala, obrnula, nestala i ostavila da kaplje u vlastiti pupak.
Prolazili su kroz hipersvemir.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“We’re trapped now, aren’t we?” “Yes,” said Ford, “we’re trapped.” “Well, didn’t you think of anything? I thought you said you were going to think of something. Perhaps you thought of something and I didn’t notice.” “Oh yes, I thought of something,” panted Ford. Arthur looked up expectantly. “But unfortunately,” continued Ford, “it rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway.” He kicked the hatch they’d just been thrown through. “But it was a good idea, was it?” “Oh yes, very neat.” “What was it?” “Well, I hadn’t worked out the details yet. Not much point now, is there?” “So … er, what happens next?” asked Arthur. “Oh, er, well, the hatchway in front of us will open automatically in a few moments and we will shoot out into deep space I expect and asphyxiate. If you take a lungful of air with you you can last for up to thirty seconds, of course …” said Ford. He stuck his hands behind his back, raised his eyebrows and started to hum an old Betelgeusian battle hymn. To Arthur’s eyes he suddenly looked very alien. “So this is it,” said Arthur, “we are going to die.” “Yes,” said Ford, “except … no! Wait a minute!” He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur’s line of vision. “What’s this switch?” he cried. “What? Where?” cried Arthur, twisting round. “No, I was only fooling,” said Ford, “we are going to die after all.” He slumped against the wall again and carried on the tune from where he left off. “You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts

“Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?” “How much?” said Arthur. “None at all,” said Mr. Prosser,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Arthur tried to gauge the speed at which they were traveling, but the blackness outside was absolute and he was denied any reference points. The sense of motion was so soft and slight he could almost believe they were hardly moving at all. Then a tiny glow of light appeared in the far distance and within seconds had grown so much in size that Arthur realized it was traveling toward them at a colossal speed, and he tried to make out what sort of craft it might be. He peered at it, but was unable to discern any clear shape, and suddenly gasped in alarm as the aircar dipped sharply and headed downward in what seemed certain to be a collision course. Their relative velocity seemed unbelievable, and Arthur had hardly time to draw breath before it was all over. The next thing he was aware of was an insane silver blur that seemed to surround him. He twisted his head sharply round and saw a small black point dwindling rapidly in the distance behind them, and it took him several seconds to realize what had happened. They had plunged into a tunnel in the ground. The colossal speed had been their own, relative to the glow of light which was a stationary hole in the ground, the mouth of the tunnel. The insane blur of silver was the circular wall of the tunnel down which they were shooting, apparently at several hundred miles an hour. He closed his eyes in terror. After a length of time which he made no attempt to judge, he sensed a slight subsidence in their speed and some while later became aware that they were gradually gliding to a gentle halt. He opened his eyes again. They were still in the silver tunnel, threading and weaving their way through what appeared to be a crisscross warren of converging tunnels. When they finally stopped it was in a small chamber of curved steel. Several tunnels also had their termini here, and at the farther end of the chamber Arthur could see a large circle of dim irritating light. It was irritating because it played tricks with the eyes, it was impossible to focus on it properly or tell how near or far it was. Arthur guessed (quite wrongly) that it might be ultraviolet. Slartibartfast turned and regarded Arthur with his solemn old eyes. “Earthman,” he said, “we are now deep in the heart of Magrathea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy