Douglas Adams > Quotes

“That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“But what about the End of the Universe? We'll miss the big moment."
I've seen it. It's rubbish," said Zaphod,"nothing but a gnab gib."
A what?"
Opposite of a big bang. Come on, let's get zappy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.”
― Douglas Adams

“After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur's mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with.
He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”
― Douglas Adams

“Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I don't go to mythical places with strange men.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself."

"Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“A fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach, and drifted back to the sea again, wondering where to go next. On a mad impulse it went up to the beach again. It drifted back to sea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

“Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.”
― Douglas Adams

“Yes, it is true that sometimes unusually intelligent and sensitive children can appear to be stupid. But stupid children can sometimes appear to be stupid as well. I think that's something you might have to consider.”
― 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?”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I have detected disturbances in the wash.'

'The wash?'

'The space-time wash.'

'Are we talking about some sort of Vogon laundromat, or what are we talking about?'

'Eddies in the space-time continuum.'

'Ah...is he. Is he.'

'What?'

'Er, who is Eddy, then, exactly?”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Ballycumber (ba-li-KUM-ber) n.
One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.”
― Douglas Adams, The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be

“The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of
the word "Infinite".
Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some.
Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a
totally stunning size, "wow, that's big", time. Infinity is just so
big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy.
Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly
huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby.
Marvin droned,
Now the world has gone to bed,
Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see in infrared,
How I hate the night.
He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Try to count electric sheep,
Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
How I hate the night.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Why?' is always the most difficult question to answer. You know where you are when someone asks you 'What's the time?' or 'When was the battle of 1066?' or 'How do these seatbelts work that go tight when you slam the brakes on, Daddy?' The answers are easy and are, respectively, 'Seven-thirty in the evening,' 'Ten-fifteen in the morning,' and 'Don't ask stupid questions.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if it's done properly. 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

“Having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“If you took a couple of David Bowies and stuck one of the David Bowies on the top of the other David Bowie, then attached another David Bowie to the end of each of the arms of the upper of the first two David Bowies and wrapped the whole business up in a dirty beach robe you would then have something which didn't exactly look like John Watson, but which those who knew him would find hauntingly familiar.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

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

“If life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.”
― Douglas Adams

“He almost danced to the fridge, found the three least hairy things in it, put them on a plate and watched them intently for two minutes. Since they made no attempt to move within that time he called them breakfast and ate them. Between them they killed a virulent space disease he'd picked up without knowing it in the Flargathon Gas Swamps a few days earlier, which otherwise would have killed off half the population of the Western Hemisphere, blinded the other half, and driven everyone else psychotic and sterile, so the Earth was lucky there.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“It is folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of their own eyes and ears.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“And so the Universe ended.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Rather than arriving five hours late and flustered, it would be better all around if he were to arrive five hours and a few extra minutes late, but triumphantly in command.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul