Douglas Adams > Quotes

“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

“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

“A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. Learn to be one with the joy of the moment.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“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

“Ford slapped a five-pound note on the bar. He said, “Keep the change.” “What, from a fiver? Thank you, sir.” “You’ve got ten minutes left to spend it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Arthur felt extraordinarily lonely stuck up in the air above it all without so much as a body to his name, but before he had time to reflect on this a voice rang out across the square and called for everyone’s attention. A man standing on a brightly dressed dais before the building which clearly dominated the square was addressing the crowd over a tannoy “O people who wait in the shadow of Deep Thought!” he cried out. “Honored Descendants of Vroomfondel and Majikthise, the Greatest and Most Truly Interesting Pundits the Universe has ever known, the Time of Waiting is over!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But by an extraordinarily lucky chance they had not yet fully corrected their flight paths to that of the erratically weaving ship, and they passed right under it. “And the sweet silver song of the lark.’… Revised impact time fifteen seconds, fellas…. ‘Walk on through the wind …”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Bir şey olacaksa, olacaktır...
Herhangi bir şey ortaya çıkarken bir şeyi ortaya çıkıyorsa, bir başka şeyin ortaya çıkmasına neden oluyor demektir...
O şey her neyse, olurken, kendi kendisinin yeniden ortaya çıkmasına sebep oluyorsa, tekrar olacaktır...
Bununla birlikte, kronolojik bir sıra izlenmesi şart değildir.”
― Douglas Adams, Otostopçu'nun Galaksi Rehberi

“The alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which separates the very few things there are in the Universe from each other.

Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its single seat. 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 at least keep him on the move.

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was --- indeed, is --- one of the Universe's very small number of immortal beings.

Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying.

Wowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light jazz on the ship's stereo, and reflected that he could have made it if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done.

To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody.

In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.

So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everyone in it in particular.

This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing which would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this.

He would insult the Universe.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Life', said Marvin, 'don't talk to me about life”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Hexagonal Phase

“This must be Thursday,’ said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, ‘I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Hexagonal Phase