Douglas Adams > Quotes

“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

“Ich kriege schon Kopfschmerzen, wenn ich bloß versuche mich auf euer Niveau runterzudenken.”
― Douglas Adams, Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis/Das Restaurant am Ende des Universums

“His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose and it did keep him on the move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quandary Phase

“He smiled the smile that Zaphod had wanted to hit and this time Zaphod hit it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn’t got anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw, his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered around in an aimless fashion.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Come off it, Mr. Dent,” he said, “you can’t win, you know. You can’t lie in front of the bulldozer indefinitely.” He tried to make his eyes blaze fiercely but”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“As you gazed into the polished surface of the marble the vague forms of instruments became visible, and as you touched them the instruments materialized instantly under your hands. Looked at from the correct angles the mirrors appeared to reflect all the required data read-outs, though it was far from clear where they were reflected from.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid. It gleamed like … it’s impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a planet made of solid gold does.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“When it’s fall in New York, the air smells as if someone’s been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe, the best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a building.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“My God, they are! They’re knocking my house down. What the hell am I doing in the pub, Ford?” “It hardly makes any difference at this stage,” said Ford, “let them have their fun.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards role the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival,Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. “For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“She was of course the last person to judge somebody by the color of their skin - or if not absolutely the last, she had at least done it as recently as yesterday afternoon /.../”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79. In”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Arthur alzò gli occhi.
“Ford!” disse “qui fuori c’è un’incredibile moltitudine di scimmie che vogliono parlarci di una sceneggiatura dell’Amleto che avrebbero appena finito di scrivere!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Don’t blame you,” said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven billion sheep before falling asleep again a second later.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Yes. Five minutes later and it wouldn’t have mattered so much. It was a quite shocking cock-up.” “Huh?” said Arthur. “The mice were furious.” “The mice were furious?” “Oh yes,” said the old man mildly. “Yes, well, so I expect were the dogs and cats and duck-billed platypuses, but . . .” “Ah, but they hadn’t paid for it, you see, had they?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” “And are you?” “No. That’s where it all falls down, of course.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy