Douglas Adams > Quotes

“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”
― Douglas Adams

“The man was awake but not glad to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“He seemed more like a succession of extraordinary events than a person.”
― 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

“The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“if you’ve never been through a matter transference beam before you’ve probably lost some salt and protein. The beer you had should have cushioned your system a bit.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the planet of Golgafrincham: it is a planet with an ancient and mysterious history, rich in legend, red, and occasionally green with the blood of those who sought in times gone by to conquer her; a land of parched and barren landscapes, of sweet and sultry air heady with the scent of the perfumed springs that trickle over its hot and dusty rocks and nourish the dark and musky lichens beneath; a land of fevered brows and intoxicated imaginings, particularly among those who taste the lichens; a land also of cool and shaded thoughts among those who have learned to forswear the lichens and find a tree to sit beneath; a land also of steel and blood and heroism; a land of the body and of the spirit.
This was its history. And in all this ancient and mysterious history, the most mysterious figures of all were without doubt those of the Great Circling poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small bands of unwary travelers, circle around them, and throw rocks at them. And when the travelers cried out, saying why didn’t they go away and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop, and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four great Song Cycles of Vassillian. These songs were all of extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all fell into exactly the same pattern.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule 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. Got any gin?”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“once described by Eccentrica Gallumbits as the Best Bang since the Big One,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“We didn’t need a special word for interactivity in the same way that we don’t (yet) need a special word for people with only one head.”
― Douglas Adams

“All this Magrathea nonsense seemed juvenile. Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? All”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Several billion trillion tons of superhot exploding hydrogen nuclei rose slowly above the horizon and managed to look small, cold and slightly damp. There”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“Madagascar had been a monkey-free refuge for the lemurs off the coast of mainland Africa, and now Nosy Mangabé had to be a monkey-free refuge off the coast of mainland Madagascar. The refuges were getting smaller and smaller, and the monkeys were already here on this one, sitting making notes about it. “The difference,” said Mark, “is that the first monkey-free refuge was set up by chance. The second was actually set up by the monkeys.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Her laughter seemed to discharge something in the atmosphere. From somewhere at the back of the crowd a single voice started to sing a tune that would have enabled Paul McCartney, had he written it, to buy the world.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I present you with a simple choice! Either die in the vacuum of space, or …” he paused for melodramatic effect, “tell me how good you thought my poem was!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“In order to fly,all one must do is simply miss the ground”
― Douglas Adams

“I'm so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis”
― Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Book 1 of 3

“they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics – as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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

“This, she reflected, in a continuation of her earlier train of thought, was presumably how religions got started, and must be the reason why so many sects hang around airports looking for converts. They know that people there are at their most vulnerable and perplexed, and ready to accept any kind of guidance.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Менеджер группы «Зона бедствия» встретился с экологами за завтраком и велел всех их перестрелять.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“You are, without doubt, holding in your hands one of the best-introduced books in the English language. We hope you enjoy the Introduction to the New Edition that follows this Introduction to it and continue to read on even into the book itself.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“Arthur ekranlara bakıp gözlerini kırpıştırdı ve önemli bir şeyi kaçırıyormuş hissine kapıldı. Birden bunun ne olduğunu fark etti.
"bu uzay gemisinde çay var mı?" diye sordu.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“All day he had gone up to people, fallen into conversation with them, listened to their troubles, and then quietly uttered those three magic words, “I believe you.” The effect had invariably been electrifying.”
― 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

“Bozulabilecek bir şeyle bozulması imkansız olan bir şey arasındaki en önemli fark bozulması imkansız olan şey bozulduğu zaman ona ulaşmanın ya da onun tamir etmenin mümkün olmamasıdır.”
― Douglas Adams

“The stories had, of course, been offensive and callously insensitive and had largely been ignored by everybody in the country except for those very few millions who were keen on offensive and callously insensitive things.”
― 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

“Thereafter, staggering semiparalytic down the night streets, he would often ask passing policemen if they knew the way to Betelgeuse.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Parts of the inside of her head screamed at other parts of the inside of her head.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy