Douglas Adams > Quotes

“The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Out,” he said. People who can supply that amount of firepower don’t need to supply verbs as well. Ford and Arthur went out, closely followed by the wrong end of the Kill-O-Zap gun and the buttons. Turning”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“It is most gratifying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated. As a token of our appreciation, we hope you will enjoy the two thermonuclear missiles we've just sent to converge with your craft. To ensure ongoing quality of service, your death may be monitored for training purposes. Thank you.”
― Douglas Adams

“The sky which had started out with such verve and spirit in the morning was beginning to lose its concentration and slip back into its normal English condition, that of a damp and rancid dishcloth.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“The great ships hung motionless in the sky, over every nation on Earth. Motionless they hung, huge, heavy, steady in the sky, a blasphemy against nature. Many people went straight into shock as their minds tried to encompass what they were looking at. The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t. And still nothing happened. Then there was a slight whisper, a sudden spacious whisper of open ambient sound. Every hi-fi set in the world, every radio, every television, every cassette recorder, every woofer, every tweeter, every mid-range driver in the world quietly turned itself on. Every tin can, every dustbin, every window, every car, every wineglass, every sheet of rusty metal became activated as an acoustically perfect sounding board. Before the Earth passed away it was going to be treated to the very ultimate in sound reproduction, the greatest public address system ever built. But there was no concert, no music, no fanfare, just a simple message. “People of Earth, your attention, please,” a voice said, and it was wonderful. Wonderful perfect quadraphonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep. “This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council,” the voice continued. “As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Plenty of people didn't care for him much, but there is a huge difference between disliking somebody - maybe even disliking them a lot - and actually shooting them, strangling them, dragging them through the fields and setting their house on fire. It was a difference which kept the vast majority of the population alive from day to day.”
― Douglas Adams

“What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Never mind,” said Ford. “Rome wasn’t burned in a day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Но ето че един ден — беше четвъртък — близо две хиляди години след като един човек бил прикован за някакво дърво заради това, че разправял колко хубаво би било, ако започнем ей тъй, за разнообразие, да бъдем добри един към друг —”
― Douglas Adams

“Come on,” insisted Zaphod, “I’ve found a way in.” “In?” said Arthur in horror. “Into the interior of the planet! An underground passage. The force of the whale’s impact cracked it open, and that’s where we have to go. Where no man has trod these five million years, into the very depths of time itself….”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The alphabet does not go “A B C D What? When? How?” but it does go “V W X Why? Z.”
― Douglas Adams

“This Introduction to the Introduction to the New Edition is a highly significant one in the history of Introductions. Its presence on these pages means that this book has achieved the World Record for the Number of Introductions in a Book of This Nature. With the addition of this Introduction to the Introduction to the New Edition, The Salmon of Doubt can now claim to have no less than three Introductions, one Prologue, and one Editor’s Note.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“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,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Ford", reče."
"Aha?"
"Šta ta riba radi u mome uhu?"
"Prevodi ti. To je babilonska ribica. Potraži je u knjizi ako hoćeš."
Dobacio mu je "Vodič kroz galaksiju za autostopere" a onda se sklupčao u fetalnu lopticu da se pripremi za skok.
U tom trenutku, Arthurov um se raspao.
Oči su mu se okrenule naopako. Noge su mu procurile kroz vrh glave.
Prostorija oko njega se izravnala, obrnula, nestala i ostavila da kaplje u vlastiti pupak.
Prolazili su kroz hipersvemir.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“We’re trapped now, aren’t we?” “Yes,” said Ford, “we’re trapped.” “Well, didn’t you think of anything? I thought you said you were going to think of something. Perhaps you thought of something and I didn’t notice.” “Oh yes, I thought of something,” panted Ford. Arthur looked up expectantly. “But unfortunately,” continued Ford, “it rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway.” He kicked the hatch they’d just been thrown through. “But it was a good idea, was it?” “Oh yes, very neat.” “What was it?” “Well, I hadn’t worked out the details yet. Not much point now, is there?” “So … er, what happens next?” asked Arthur. “Oh, er, well, the hatchway in front of us will open automatically in a few moments and we will shoot out into deep space I expect and asphyxiate. If you take a lungful of air with you you can last for up to thirty seconds, of course …” said Ford. He stuck his hands behind his back, raised his eyebrows and started to hum an old Betelgeusian battle hymn. To Arthur’s eyes he suddenly looked very alien. “So this is it,” said Arthur, “we are going to die.” “Yes,” said Ford, “except … no! Wait a minute!” He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur’s line of vision. “What’s this switch?” he cried. “What? Where?” cried Arthur, twisting round. “No, I was only fooling,” said Ford, “we are going to die after all.” He slumped against the wall again and carried on the tune from where he left off. “You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts

“Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?” “How much?” said Arthur. “None at all,” said Mr. Prosser,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Arthur tried to gauge the speed at which they were traveling, but the blackness outside was absolute and he was denied any reference points. The sense of motion was so soft and slight he could almost believe they were hardly moving at all. Then a tiny glow of light appeared in the far distance and within seconds had grown so much in size that Arthur realized it was traveling toward them at a colossal speed, and he tried to make out what sort of craft it might be. He peered at it, but was unable to discern any clear shape, and suddenly gasped in alarm as the aircar dipped sharply and headed downward in what seemed certain to be a collision course. Their relative velocity seemed unbelievable, and Arthur had hardly time to draw breath before it was all over. The next thing he was aware of was an insane silver blur that seemed to surround him. He twisted his head sharply round and saw a small black point dwindling rapidly in the distance behind them, and it took him several seconds to realize what had happened. They had plunged into a tunnel in the ground. The colossal speed had been their own, relative to the glow of light which was a stationary hole in the ground, the mouth of the tunnel. The insane blur of silver was the circular wall of the tunnel down which they were shooting, apparently at several hundred miles an hour. He closed his eyes in terror. After a length of time which he made no attempt to judge, he sensed a slight subsidence in their speed and some while later became aware that they were gradually gliding to a gentle halt. He opened his eyes again. They were still in the silver tunnel, threading and weaving their way through what appeared to be a crisscross warren of converging tunnels. When they finally stopped it was in a small chamber of curved steel. Several tunnels also had their termini here, and at the farther end of the chamber Arthur could see a large circle of dim irritating light. It was irritating because it played tricks with the eyes, it was impossible to focus on it properly or tell how near or far it was. Arthur guessed (quite wrongly) that it might be ultraviolet. Slartibartfast turned and regarded Arthur with his solemn old eyes. “Earthman,” he said, “we are now deep in the heart of Magrathea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“If you would care to discover what happened seven and a half million years later, on the great day of the Answer, allow me to invite you to my study where you can experience the events yourself on our Sens-O-Tape records. That is, unless you would care to take a quick stroll on the surface of New Earth. It’s only half completed, I’m afraid—we haven’t even finished burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons in the crust yet, then we have the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods of the Cenozoic Era to lay down, and …”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But listen,” he shouted to the guard, “there’s a whole world you don’t know anything about … here, how about this?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”) Major”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“La storia di tutte le maggiori civiltà galattiche tende ad attraversare tre fasi distinte e ben riconoscibili, ovvero le fasi della Sopravvivenza, della Riflessione e della Decadenza, altrimenti dette fasi del Come, del Perché e del Dove.
“La prima frase, per esempio, è caratterizzata dalla domanda ‘Come facciamo a procurarci da mangiare?’, la seconda dalla domanda ‘Perché mangiamo?’ e la terza dalla domanda ‘In quale ristorante pranziamo oggi?’.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as ‘Your Plastic Pal Who’s Fun To Be With’.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“First there had been the fridge.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“How can I tell,” said the man, “that the past isn’t a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?” Zarniwoop”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Oh God,” muttered Ford, slumped against a bulkhead. He started to count to ten. He was desperately worried that one day sentient life forms would forget how to do this. Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Tips for aliens in New York: Land anywhere, Central Park, anywhere. No one will care or indeed even notice.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Rome wasn't burned in a day.”
― Douglas Adams, Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 2 of 3

“He sat and tapped his teeth with a pencil again and watched his sofa slowly revolving on the screen of his computer.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency