Douglas Adams > Quotes

“You see what I have done?' he asked the ceiling, which seemed to flinch slightly at being yanked so suddenly into the conversation.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“This is, er, this your advice then, is it?" said Arthur, leafing through them uncertainly.
"No," said the old lady. "It's the story of my life. You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. Now, as you look through this document you'll see that I've underlined all the major decisions I ever made to make them stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take decisions that are exactly opposite to the sort of decisions that I've taken, then maybe you won't finish up at the end of your life..." she paused, and filled her lungs for a good shout, "... in a smelly old cave like this!”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“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 eyes and ears.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“And that’s the deciding factor. We can’t win against obsession. They care, we don’t. They win.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Su cabeza nadaba a estilo libre, pero en su estómago alguien practicaba el mariposa.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“No? How about now? Am I going backwards?'

For once the bird was perfectly still and steady.

'No,' said Random.

'Well I was in fact, I was moving backwards in time. Hmmm. Well I think we've sorted all that out now. If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions 13 to 22 that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place. I can easily not say words like «damn» if it offends you.'

'Say what you damn well like.'

'I will.'

'What the hell are you?' demanded Random.

'I am The Guide. In your universe I am your Guide. In fact I inhabit what is technically known as the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash which means . . . well, let me show you.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Bu gezegenin şöyle bir sorunu var - eskiden vardı: Üzerinde yaşayan halkın büyük bölümü çoğu zaman mutsuzdu. Bu sorun için pek çok çözüm önerilmişti, ama bunların çoğu genellikle yeşil renkli kağıt parçalarının hareketleriyle ilgiliydi. Bu da tuhaftı, çünkü aslında mutsuz olanlar yeşil renkli küçük kağıt parçaları değildi.”
― Douglas Adams, Otostopçu'nun Galaksi Rehberi

“Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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 Radio Scripts: Tertiary, Quandary & Quintessential Phases

“When the girl sitting at the next table looked away for a moment, Dirk leaned over and took her coffee. He knew that he was perfectly safe doing this because she would simply not be able to believe that this had happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“For all I know,” said Gargravarr’s ethereal voice, “I’m probably at one. My body that is. It goes to a lot of parties without me. Says I only get in the way. Hey ho.” “What is all this with your body?” said Zaphod, anxious to delay whatever it was that was going to happen to him. “Well, it’s … it’s busy you know,” said Gargravarr hesitantly. “You mean it’s got a mind of its own?” said Zaphod. There was a long and slightly chilly pause before Gargravarr spoke again. “I have to say,” he replied eventually, “that I find that remark in rather poor taste.” Zaphod muttered a bewildered and embarrassed apology. “No matter,” said Gargravarr, “you weren’t to know.” The voice fluttered unhappily. “The truth is,” it continued in tones which suggested he was trying very hard to keep it under control, “the truth is that we are currently undergoing a period of legal trial separation. I suspect it will end in divorce.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“I’m afraid I can’t comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous Para-Causal Meteorological Phenomenon.’
‘Can you tell us what that means?’
‘I’m not altogether sure. Let’s be straight here. If we find something we can’t understand, we like to call it something you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that.
‘No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is.
‘And if it turns out that you’re right, you’ll still be wrong, because we will simply call him a . . . er, “Supernormal . . .” – not paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those mean now, no, a “Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer”. We’ll probably want to shove a “Quasi” in there somewhere to protect ourselves. Rain God! Huh, never heard such nonsense in my life. Admittedly, you wouldn’t catch me going on holiday with him. Thanks, that’ll be all for now, other than to say “Hi!” to Wonko if he’s watching.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Tricia was a TV anchor person, and New York was where most of the world’s TV was anchored. Tricia’s TV anchoring had been done exclusively in Britain up to that point: regional news, then breakfast news, early evening news. She would have been called, if the language allowed, a rapidly rising anchor, but…hey, this is television, what does it matter? She was a rapidly rising anchor.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“and we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere…and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What sort of ship are we in?’ asked Arthur as the pit of eternity yawned beneath them. ‘I don’t know,’ said Ford, ‘I haven’t opened my eyes yet.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.”
― Douglas Adams

“play the game of Vogon Civil Service politics, and play it well, and waterproof enough for him to survive indefinitely at sea depths of down to a thousand feet with no ill effects. Not that he ever went swimming of course. His busy schedule would not allow it. He was the way he was because billions of years ago when the Vogons had first crawled out of the sluggish primeval seas of Vogsphere, and had lain panting and heaving on the planet’s virgin shores … when the first rays of the bright young Vogsol sun had shone across them that morning, it was as if the forces of evolution had simply given up on them there and then, had turned aside in disgust and written them off as an ugly and unfortunate mistake. They never evolved again: they should never have survived. The fact that they did is some kind of tribute to the thick-willed slug-brained stubbornness of these creatures. Evolution? they said to themselves, Who needs it?, and what nature refused to do for them they simply did without until such time as they were able to rectify the gross anatomical inconveniences with surgery. Meanwhile, the natural forces on the planet Vogsphere had been working overtime to make up for their earlier blunder. They brought forth scintillating jeweled scuttling crabs, which the Vogons ate, smashing their shells with iron mallets;”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Curiosamente, lo único que pasó por la mente del tiesto de petunias mientras caía fue: "¡Oh, no! Otra vez, no". Mucha gente ha imaginado que si supiéramos exactamente lo que pensó el tiesto de petunias, conoceríamos mucho más de la naturaleza del Universo de lo que sabemos ahora.”
― Douglas Adams

“Just as Einstein observed that time was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement in space, and that space was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement in time, so it now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“The other two-thirds stayed firmly at home and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Flare riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford to do it are among the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous—those who don’t die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club’s Après-Flare parties.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“They threw themselves back to the ground that seemed to spin hideously around them. “What was that?” hissed Arthur. “Something red,” hissed Ford back at him. “Where are we?” “Er, somewhere green.” “Shapes,” muttered Arthur, “I need shapes.” The”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Just as Einstein observed that time was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement in space, and that space was not an absolute but depended on the observer's movement in time, so it now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in restaurants.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“But the fourth, the many-to-many, we didn’t have at all before the coming of the Internet, which, of course, runs on fiberoptics. It’s communication between us that forms the fourth age of sand.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Glancing at his watch, Max returned to the stage with a flourish. “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” he beamed, “is everyone having one last wonderful time?” “Yes,” called out the sort of people who call out “yes” when comedians ask them if they’re having a wonderful time. “That’s wonderful,” enthused Max,”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else’s point of view without the proper training.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... Anyone who is capable of getting themselves into a position of power should on no account be allowed to do the job”
― Douglas Adams

“Infinity minus one,” chattered the computer. “Improbability sum now complete.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“There would be no point in asking Zaphod, he never appeared to have a reason for anything he did at all: he had turned unfathomability into an art form. He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy