Douglas Adams > Quotes

“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

“Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if I don’t get up and go to work?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“If I ever meet myself,” said Zaphod, “I’ll hit myself so hard I won’t know what’s hit me.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“There really wasn’t a lot this machine could do that you couldn’t do yourself in half the time with a lot less trouble,” said Richard, “but it was, on the other hand, very good at being a slow and dim-witted pupil.” Reg looked at him quizzically. “I had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply,” he said. “I could hit a dozen with a bread roll from where I’m sitting.” “I’m sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?” This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table. Richard continued, “What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Such music", he said. "I'm not religious, but if I were I would say it was like a glimpse into the mind of God. Perhaps it was and i ought to be religious. I have to keep reminding myself that they didn't create the music, they only created the instrument which could read the score. And the score was life itself. And it's all up there".”
― Douglas Adams

“Non è sufficiente godere della bellezza di un giardino? Che bisogno c'è di credere che sia segretamente abitato dalle fate?”
― Douglas Adams, Guida galattica per gli autostoppisti

“Anything that happens, happens.
Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Sensational new breakthrough in Improbability Physics. As soon as the ship’s drive reaches Infinite Improbability it passes through every point in the Universe. Be the envy of other major governments.’ Wow, this is big league stuff.” Ford hunted excitedly through the technical specs of the ship, occasionally gasping with astonishment at what he read— clearly Galactic astrotechnology had moved ahead during the years of his exile.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But can we trust him?” he said. “Myself I’d trust him to the end of the Earth,” said Ford.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept it,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“As she lay beneath a pile of rubble, in pain, darkness, and choking dust, trying to find sensation in her limbs, she was at least relieved to be able to think that she hadn't merely been imagining that this was a bad day. So thinking, she passed out.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Ford,’ he said, ‘you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“You can’t possibly be a scientist if you mind people thinking that you’re a fool.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“How can you tell there's anything out there?" said the man politely. "The door's closed."

"But you know there's a whole Universe out there!" cried Zarniwoop. "You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!"

The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while while Zarniwoop quivered with anger.

"You're very sure of your facts," he said at last. "I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is one - for granted."

Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent.

"I only decide about my Universe," continued the man quietly. "My Universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay."

"But don't you believe in anything?"

The man shrugged and picked up his cat. "I don't understand what you mean," he said.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“There you are, Arthur,” said Ford with the air of someone reaching the conclusion of his argument, “you think you’ve got problems.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Yes but, Arthur, that's ridiculous. People think that if you just say 'hallucinations' it explains anything you want it to explain and eventually whatever it is you can't understand will just go away.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Zaphod paused for a while. For a while there was silence. Then he frowned and said, “Last night I was worrying about this again. About the fact that part of my mind just didn’t seem to work properly. Then it occurred to me that the way it seemed was that someone else was using my mind to have good ideas with, without telling me about it. I put the two ideas together and decided that maybe that somebody had locked off part of my mind for that purpose, which was why I couldn’t use it. I wondered if there was a way I could check.
“I went to the ship’s medical bay and plugged myself into the encephalographic screen. I went through every major screening test on both my heads—all the tests I had to go through under Government medical officers before my nomination for presidency could be properly ratified. They showed up nothing. Nothing unexpected at least. They showed that I was clever, imaginative, irresponsible, untrustworthy, extrovert, nothing you couldn’t have guessed. And no other anomalies. So I started inventing further tests, completely at random. Nothing. Then I tried superimposing the results from one head on top of the results from the other head. Still nothing. Finally I got silly, because I’d given it all up as nothing more than an attack of paranoia. Last thing I did before I packed it in was take the superimposed picture and look at it through a green filter. You remember I was always superstitious about the color green when I was a kid? I always wanted to be a pilot on one of the trading scouts?”
Ford nodded.
“And there it was,” said Zaphod, “clear as day. A whole section in the middle of both brains that related only to each other and not to anything else around them. Some bastard had cauterized all the synapses and electronically traumatized those two lumps of cerebellum.”
Ford stared at him, aghast. Trillian had turned white.
“Somebody did that to you?” whispered Ford.
“Yeah.”
“But have you any idea who? Or why?”
“Why? I can only guess. But I do know who the bastard was.”
“You know? How do you know?”
“Because they left their initials burned into the cauterized synapses. They left them there for me to see.”
Ford stared at him in horror and felt his skin begin to crawl.
“Initials? Burned into your brain?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what were they, for God’s sake?”
Zaphod looked at him in silence again for a moment. Then he looked away.
“Z.B.,” he said quietly.
At that moment a steel shutter slammed down behind them and gas started to pour into the chamber.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” choked Zaphod as all three passed out.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“He had seen the whole Universe stretching to infinity around him—everything. And with it had come the clear and extraordinary knowledge that he was the most important thing in it. Having a conceited ego is one thing. Actually being told by a machine is another.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli: he was ideal presidency fodder.*”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“More of the planet was unfolding beneath them as the Heart of Gold streaked along its orbital path. The suns now stood high in the black sky, the pyrotechnics of dawn were over, and the surface of the planet appeared bleak and forbidding in the common light of day—gray dusty and only dimly contoured. It looked dead and cold as a crypt. From time to time promising features would appear on the distant horizon—ravines, maybe mountains, maybe even cities—but as they approached the lines would soften and blur into anonymity and nothing would transpire. The planet’s surface was blurred by time, by the slow movement of the thin stagnant air that had crept across it for century upon century.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“You are disoriented. Blackness swims toward you like a school of eels who have just seen something that eels like a lot.”
― Douglas Adams

“This fact may safely be made the subject of suspense since it is of no significance whatsoever.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy