Douglas Adams > Quotes

“they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics – as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Zaphod leaped out of his seat. “Then what’s happened to the missiles?” he said. A new and astounding image appeared in the mirrors. “They would appear,” said Ford doubtfully, “to have turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised-looking whale . . .”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses,”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Менеджер группы «Зона бедствия» встретился с экологами за завтраком и велел всех их перестрелять.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“You are, without doubt, holding in your hands one of the best-introduced books in the English language. We hope you enjoy the Introduction to the New Edition that follows this Introduction to it and continue to read on even into the book itself.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“How would an immortal being have a passport? Quite simply, how? Dirk tried to imagine what might happen if—to pick a name quite at random—the God Thor, he of the Norwegian ancestry and the great hammer, were to arrive at the passport office and try to explain who he was and how come he had no birth certificate. There would be no shock, no horror, no loud exclamations of astonishment, just blank, bureaucratic impossibility. It wouldn’t be a matter of whether anybody believed him or not, it would simply be a question of producing a valid birth certificate. He could stand there wreaking miracles all day if he liked but at close of business, if he didn’t have a valid birth certificate, he would simply be asked to leave.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Arthur ekranlara bakıp gözlerini kırpıştırdı ve önemli bir şeyi kaçırıyormuş hissine kapıldı. Birden bunun ne olduğunu fark etti.
"bu uzay gemisinde çay var mı?" diye sordu.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The little book of instructions suggested that he should simply concentrate ‘soulfully’ on the question which was ‘besieging’ him, write it down, ponder on it, enjoy the silence, and then once he had achieved inner harmony and tranquillity he should push the red button. There wasn’t a red button, but there was a blue button marked ‘Red’, and this Dirk took to be the one.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“Oh ah.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“All day he had gone up to people, fallen into conversation with them, listened to their troubles, and then quietly uttered those three magic words, “I believe you.” The effect had invariably been electrifying.”
― 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

“Bozulabilecek bir şeyle bozulması imkansız olan bir şey arasındaki en önemli fark bozulması imkansız olan şey bozulduğu zaman ona ulaşmanın ya da onun tamir etmenin mümkün olmamasıdır.”
― Douglas Adams

“The stories had, of course, been offensive and callously insensitive and had largely been ignored by everybody in the country except for those very few millions who were keen on offensive and callously insensitive things.”
― 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

“Thereafter, staggering semiparalytic down the night streets, he would often ask passing policemen if they knew the way to Betelgeuse.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Parts of the inside of her head screamed at other parts of the inside of her head.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The Arcturan megafreighters used to carry most of the bulky trade between the Galactic Center and the outlying regions. The Betelgeuse trading scouts used to find the markets and the Arcturans would supply them. There was a lot of trouble with space pirates before they were wiped out in the Dordellis wars, and the megafreighters had to be equipped with the most fantastic defense shields known to Galactic science. They were real brutes of ships, and huge. In orbit round a planet they would eclipse the sun. “One day, young Zaphod here decides to raid one. On a tri-jet scooter designed for stratosphere work, a mere kid. I”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“don’t know what I’m looking for.” “Why not?” “Because…because…I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.” “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

“Now logic is a wonderful thing but it has, as the processes of evolution discovered, certain drawbacks. Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does. The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“She worked out once and for all where the Land Rover had to be, and worked it out with such ruthless determination that the Land Rover would hardly dare not to be there,”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.’ ‘And are you?’ ‘No. That’s where it all falls down, of course.’ ‘Pity,’ said Arthur with sympathy. ‘It sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“He had repaired his ship – that is, he’d watched with alert interest whilst a service robot had repaired it for him. It”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“Like all Vogon ships it looked as if it had been not so much designed as congealed. The unpleasant yellow lumps and edifices which protruded from it at unsightly angles would have disfigured the looks of most ships, but in this case that was sadly impossible. Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not by reliable witnesses.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I've been busy," said Ford, rather weakly. He staggered to his feet, brushing himself down. Then he thought, what the hell was he saying things weakly for? He had to get on top of this situation.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“It was the product of a mind that was not merely twisted, but actually sprained.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Lots of people are not in the business you think they’re in. Xerox, for instance, is in the business of selling toner cartridges. All that mucking about they do developing high-tech copying and printing machines is just creating a commodity market in toner cartridges, which is where their profit lies. Television companies are not in the business of delivering television programmes to their audience, they’re in the business of delivering audiences to their advertisers.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“My name,” he said, “is Slartibartfast.” Arthur”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He wondered if it was safe to grin. Very slowly and carefully, he grinned. It was safe.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying. I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my schoolfriends went to heaven or hell, and I was sent to Southend.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“If I asked you where the hell we were,’ said Arthur weakly, ‘would I regret it?’ Ford stood up. ‘We’re safe,’ he said. ‘Oh good,’ said Arthur. ‘We’re in a small galley cabin,’ said Ford, ‘in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.’ ‘Ah,’ said Arthur, ‘this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“It might not even have made much difference to them if they’d known exactly how much power the President of the Galaxy actually wielded: none at all. 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 Beeblebrox was amazingly good at his job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy