Douglas Adams > Quotes

“The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses. To explain—since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation—every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake. The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife. Trin”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Marvin regarded it with cold loathing while his logic circuits chattered with disgust and tinkered with the concept of directing physical violence against it. Further circuits cut in saying, Why bother? What’s the point? Nothing is worth getting involved in. Further circuits amused themselves by analyzing the molecular components of the door, and of the humanoids’ brain cells. For a quick encore they measured the level of hydrogen emissions in the surrounding cubic parsec of space and then shut down again in boredom. A spasm of despair shook the robot’s body as he turned.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“They believe in “peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life and the obliteration of all other life forms”.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“Computer, what evasive action can we take?” “Er, none, I’m afraid, guys,” said the computer. “Or something,” said Zaphod, “… er …” he said. “There seems to be something jamming my guidance systems,” explained the computer brightly, “impact minus forty-five seconds. Please call me Eddie if it will help you to relax.” Zaphod tried to run in several equally decisive directions simultaneously. “Right!” he said. “Er … we’ve got to get manual control of this ship.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It said that the major activities pursued on NowWhat were those of catching, skinning, and eating of the NowWhattian boghogs, which were the only extant form of animal life on NowWhat, all other having died long ago of despair. The boghogs were tiny, vicious creatures, and the small margin by which they fell short of being completely inedible was the margin by which life on the planet subsisted. So what were the rewards, however small, that made life on NowWhat worth living? Well, there weren’t any. Not a one. Even making yourself some protective clothing out of boghog skins was an exercise in disappointment and futility, since the skins were unaccountably thin and leaky. This caused a lot of puzzled conjecture amongst the settlers. What was the boghog’s secret of keeping warm? If anyone had ever learnt the language the boghogs spoke to each other they would have realized that there was no trick. The boghogs were as cold and wet as anyone else on the planet.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Today was also his two-hundredth birthday, but that was just another meaningless coincidence.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“And do we also have, do we have … a party of minor deities from the Halls of Asgard?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion was the better part of valour, so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a cupboard.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy of Five

“Zbogom, i hvala za svu tu ribu!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“All right,” said Deep Thought. “The Answer to the Great Question . . .” “Yes . . . !” “Of Life, the Universe and Everything . . .” said Deep Thought. “Yes . . . !” “Is . . .” said Deep Thought, and paused. “Yes . . . !” “Is . . .” “Yes . . . !!! . . . ?” “Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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