Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Il vestito scivolò giù sospinto dal vento, fino a diventare un puntolino che poi scomparve e che, per varie e complicate ragioni, scombussolò la vita di una famiglia di Hounslow sui cui fili del bucato risultò appeso la mattina dopo.
In un muto abbraccio Arthur e Fenny salirono in su e volarono tra gli spettri umidi e nebbiosi che si vedono fluttuare introno alle ali degli aerei, ma che sono per lo più impalpabili, in quanto chi viaggia di solito sta seduto nel caldo soffocante dell'apparecchio e guarda fuori dal piccolo oblò perspex graffiato di sopra le nubi che la luna illumina mentre il figlio di qualcun'latro cerca pazientemente di versagli il latte caldo sulla camicia.
Per Arthur e Fenchurch invece quegli spettri esili, sottili e freddi non erano impalpabili, perchè la loro fredda, sottile umidità era tutta avvolta intorno al loro corpo.
Sentirono (anche Fenchurch, che adesso solamente due piccoli capi di Marks and Spencer proteggevano dagli elementi) che se non avessero permesso alla forza di gravità di infastidirli, il freddo o l'atmosfera rarefatta avrebbero potuto tranquillamente andare a quel paese.
I due piccoli capi di Marks and Spencer che, mentre Fenchurch volava in mezzo alla massa nebbiosa delle nubi, Arthur sfilò molto, molto lentamente (nell'unico modo, cioè, in cui è possibile farlo quando si vola o quando non si usano le mani) fluttuarono giù e la mattina dopo provocarono notevole scompiglio in, contando dall'altro al basso, Isleworth e Richmond.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The cheery quality of Ford's voice was beginning to grate on the barman's ears. It sounded like someone relentlessly playing the kazoo during one of the more somber passages of a war requiem.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Geceleyin gökyüzüne bakmak sonsuzluğa bakmaktır...”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question “How can we eat?”, the second by the question “Why do we eat?” and the third by the question, “Where shall we have lunch?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn’t be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Ru ... ra ... wah ... who?" He finally managed to say and lapsed into a frantic kind of silence. He was feeling the effects of having not said anything to anybody for as long as he could remember.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Rüyasında, gecenin geç bir saatinde Doğu Yakasındaki nehrin kıyısında yürüyordu ve nehir öyle acayip kirlenmişti ki, artık suyun içinde bir sürü yeni canlı türü kendiliğinden ortaya çıkıyor, kendileri için devlet yardımı ve oy hakkı talep ediyorlardı.”
― Douglas Adams

“Foreigners are not allowed to drive in China, and you can see why. The Chinese drive, or cycle, according to laws that are simply not apparent to an uninitiated observer, and I'm thinking not merely of the laws of the Highway Code, I'm thinking of the laws of physics.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Me ha dicho el médico que tengo mal formada una glándula del deber social y una deficiencia congénita en la fibra moral y que por tanto estoy excusado de salvar universos.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Trillian punched up the figures. They showed two-to-the-power-of-Infinity-minus-one to one against (an irrational number that only has a conventional meaning in Improbability Physics).”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Well,’ said Halfrunt brightly, ‘Zaphod’s just this guy, you know?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“Marvin stood there.

‘Out of my way little robot,’ growled the tank.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Marvin, ‘that I’ve been left here to stop you.’

The probe extended again for a quick recheck. It withdrew again.

‘You? Stop me?’ roared the tank, ‘Go on!’

‘No, really I have,’ said Marvin simply.

‘What are you armed with?’ roared the tank in disbelief.

‘Guess,’ said Marvin.

The tank’s engines rumbled, its gears ground. Molecule-sized electronic relays deep in its micro-brain flipped backwards and forwards in consternation.

‘Guess?’ said the tank.

‘Yes, go on,’ said Marvin to the huge battle machine, ‘you’ll never guess.’

‘Errrmmm …’ said the machine, vibrating with unaccustomed thought, ‘laser beams?’

Marvin shook his head solemnly.

‘No,’ muttered the machine in its deep gutteral rumble, ‘Too obvious. Anti-matter ray?’ it hazarded.

‘Far too obvious,’ admonished Marvin.

‘Yes,’ grumbled the machine, somewhat abashed, ‘Er … how about an electron ram?’

This was new to Marvin.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘One of these,’ said the machine with enthusiasm.

From its turret emerged a sharp prong which spat a single lethal blaze of light. Behind Marvin a wall roared and collapsed as a heap of dust. The dust billowed briefly, then settled.

‘No,’ said Marvin, ‘not one of those.’

‘Good though, isn’t it?’

‘Very good,’ agreed Marvin.

‘I know,’ said the Frogstar battle machine, after another moment’s consideration, ‘you must have one of those new Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!’

'Nice, aren’t they?’ agreed Marvin.

‘That’s what you’ve got?’ said the machine in condiderable awe.

‘No,’ said Marvin.

‘Oh,’ said the machine, disappointed, ‘then it must be …’

‘You’re thinking along the wrong lines,’ said Marvin, ‘You’re failing to take into account something fairly basic in the relationship between men and robots.’

‘Er, I know,’ said the battle machine, 'is it … ’ it tailed off into thought again.

‘Just think,’ urged Marvin, ‘they left me, an ordinary, menial robot, to stop you, a gigantic heavy-duty battle machine, whilst they ran off to save themselves. What do you think they would leave me with?’

‘Oooh er,’ muttered the machine in alarm, ‘something pretty damn devastating I should expect.’

‘Expect!’ said Marvin. ‘Oh yes, expect. I’ll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with shall I?’

‘Yes, alright,’ said the battle machine, bracing itself.

‘Nothing,’ said Marvin.

There was a dangerous pause.

'Nothing?’ roared the battle machine.

‘Nothing at all,’ intoned Marvin dismally, ‘not an electronic sausage.’

The machine heaved about with fury.

‘Well doesn’t that just take the biscuit!’ it roared, ‘Nothing, eh?’ Just don’t think, do they?’

‘And me,’ said Marvin in a soft low voice, ‘with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.’

‘Makes you spit, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Marvin with feeling.

‘Hell that makes me angry,’ bellowed the machine, ‘think I’ll smash that wall down!’

The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and took out the wall next to the machine.

‘How do you think I feel?’ said Marvin bitterly.

‘Just ran off and left you did they?’ the Machine thundered.

‘Yes,’ said Marvin.

‘I think I’ll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well!’ raged the tank.

It took out the ceiling of the bridge.

‘That’s very impressive,’ murmured Marvin.

‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ promised the machine, ‘I can take out this floor too, no trouble!’

It took out the floor too.

‘Hells bells!’ the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen storeys and smashed itself to bits on the ground below.

‘What a depressingly stupid machine,’ said Marvin and trudged away.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Very strange people, physicists,” he said as soon as they were outside again. “In my experience the ones who aren’t actually dead are in some way very ill.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“I went mad for a while,” said Ford, “did me no end of good.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Well, the story so far certainly is strange enough; the robot stood here for three days and nights after its arrival, we think now waiting for a deputation of lizards. Several politicians thought to have lizard-like characteristics were sent to parley with the robot but were fried by the flying arc-welding kits which defend this area. That resulted in the almost complete annihilation of the Cabinet and many Opposition MPs.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Further Radio Scripts

“Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy of Five

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

“It is said that there is nothing surprising about the notion of, for instance, a person suddenly thinking about someone they haven’t thought about for years, and then discovering the next day that the person has in fact just died.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“And are you not,” said Fook, leaning anxiously forward, “a greater analyst than the Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn’t be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so – but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy of Five

“Non è un vero scienziato chi ha timore che la gente lo ritenga pazzo.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Arthur didn't notice that the men were running from the bulldozers; he didn't notice that Mr Prosser was staring hectically into the sky. What Mr Prosser had noticed was that huge yellow somethings were screaming through the cluds, impossibly huge somethings.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“(Hablando de los robots krikkitenses)
-Bueno, creo que se encuentran muy deprimidos por algo, señor.
-¿De qué diablos krikkitenses habla?
-Pues (...) parece que al entrar en combate alzan las armas para disparar y de pronto piensan: "¿para qué molestarse? ¿Qué sentido tiene todo esto desde el punto de vista cósmico? Y se vuelven un poco tristes y cansados.
-¿Y qué es lo que hacen, entonces?
-Pues, principalmente, ecuaciones de segundo grado, señor. Tremendamente difíciles en todos los sentidos. Y luego se enfurruñan.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Even the most seasoned star tramp can’t help but shiver at the spectacular drama of a sunrise seen from space,”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“There is a very simple principle to the making of tea, and it’s this—to get the proper flavour of tea, the water has to be boilING (not boilED) when it hits the tea leaves. If it’s merely hot, then the tea will be insipid.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“In fact, he had always done the bare minimum of research necessary to support these myths. He was lazy, and essentially what he did was allow people’s enthusiastic credulity to do the work for him.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Well, Gordon assigned me to write a major piece of software for the Apple Macintosh. Financial spreadsheet, accounting, that sort of thing, powerful, easy to use, lots of graphics. I asked him exactly what he wanted in it, and he just said, ‘Everything. I want the top piece of all-singing, all-dancing business software for that machine.’ And being of a slightly whimsical turn of mind I took him literally. “You see, a pattern of numbers can represent anything you like, can be used to map any surface, or modulate any dynamic process—and so on. And any set of company accounts are, in the end, just a pattern of numbers. So I sat down and wrote a program that’ll take those numbers and do what you like with them. If you just want a bar graph it’ll do them as a bar graph, if you want them as a pie chart or scatter graph it’ll do them as a pie chart or scatter graph. If you want dancing girls jumping out of the pie chart in order to distract attention from the figures the pie chart actually represents, then the program will do that as well. Or you can turn your figures into, for instance, a flock of seagulls, and the formation they fly in and the way in which the wings of each gull beat will be determined by the performance of each division of your company. Great for producing animated corporate logos that actually mean something. “But the silliest feature of all was that if you wanted your company accounts represented as a piece of music, it could do that as well. Well, I thought it was silly. The corporate world went bananas over it.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency