Douglas Adams > Quotes

“computer chattered to itself in alarm as it noticed an airlock open and close itself for no apparent reason. This was because reason was in fact out to lunch.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“All I wanted to say,” bellowed the computer, “is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” He paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone’s attention, before continuing more quietly. “But the program will take me a little while to run.”

Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.

“How long?” he said.

“Seven and a half million years,” said Deep Thought.

Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other.

“Seven and a half million years!” they cried in chorus.

“Yes,” declaimed Deep Thought, “I said I’d have to think about it, didn’t I? And it occurs to me that running a program like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole are of philosophy in general. Everyone’s going to have their own theories about what answer I’m eventually going to come up with, and who better, to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and maligning each other in the popular press, and so long as you have clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?”

The two philosophers gaped at him.

“Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?”

“Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.”

So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a life-style beyond their wildest dreams.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Boxset: Guide to the Galaxy / The Restaurant at the End of the Universe / Life, the Universe and ... and Thanks for all the Fish / Mostly Harmless

“He recalls a lot of family worry about what he was going to do, and while he still sent in the occasional sketch to radio shows, he acknowledges that his confidence was extremely low. Despite his subsequent success and wealth, this propensity for a lack of confidence has continued.

“I have terrible periods of lack of confidence,” he explains. “I just don’t believe I can do it and no evidence to the contrary will sway me from that view. I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather—you just have to get on with it.”

So has that approach helped him? “Not necessarily,” he shrugs.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Even light, which travels so fast that it takes most races thousands of years to realize that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“A beach house,” he said, “doesn’t even have to be on the beach. Though the best ones are. We all like to congregate,” he went on, “at boundary conditions.” “Really?” said Arthur. “Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where body meets mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost for ever.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Now logic is a wonderful thing but it has, as the process of evolution discovered, certain drawbacks. Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else which thinks at least as logically as it does.”
― Douglas Adams

“According to the legends,” he said, “the Magratheans lived most of their lives underground.” “Why’s that?” said Arthur. “Did the surface become too polluted or overpopulated?” “No, I don’t think so,” said Zaphod. “I think they just didn’t like it very much.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Ford handed the book to Arthur. “What is it?” asked Arthur. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a sort of electronic book. It tells you everything you need to know about anything. That’s its job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The only place they registered at all was on a small black device called a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic which winked away quietly to itself. It nestled in the darkness inside a leather satchel which Ford Prefect habitually wore slung around his neck.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“When one day an expedition was sent to the spatial coordinates that Voojagig had claimed for the planet they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“He knew where his towel was.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Hay una teoría que afirma que si alguien descubriera lo que es exactamente el universo y el porqué de su existencia, desaparecería al instante y sería sustituido por algo aún más extraño e inexplicable.
Hay otra teoría que afirma que eso ya ha ocurrido”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she could fool herself she could fool anybody.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“I think this ship's brand new," said Ford. "How can you tell?" asked Arthur. "Have you got some exotic device for measuring the age of metal?" "No, I just found this sales brochure lying on floor”
― Douglas Adams

“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, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“My wife kept wheat germ in ours,” resumed Wonko, with some new tone in his voice, “until last night.…” “What,” said Arthur slowly and hushedly, “happened last night?” “We ran out of wheat germ,” said Wonko, evenly. “My wife,” he added, “has gone to get some more.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He pulled himself up short. He believed in a door. He must find that door. The door was the way to . . . to . . . The Door was The Way. Good. Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn’t have a good answer to. Brusquely”
― 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

“Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. “Zaphod,” she said patiently,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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 the 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

“Es gibt eine Theorie, die besagt, wenn jemals irgendwer genau herausfindet, wozu das Universum da ist und warum es da ist, dann verschwindet es und wird durch etwas noch Bizarreres und Unbegreiflicheres ersetzt.
Es gibt eine andere Theorie nach der das schon passiert ist.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“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