Douglas Adams > Quotes

“No livro seguinte, a história é retomada cinco anos depois e é possível, afirmam alguns, exagerar na discrição. 'Esse tal de Arthur Dent', faz-se ouvir o grito provindo dos cantos mais longínquos da Galáxia, que agora foi até mesmo encontrado inscrito em uma misteriosa sonda espacial, supostamente originária de uma galáxia alienígena e vinda de uma distância demasiado horrorosa para sequer ser ponderada, 'o que é ele, um homem ou um rato? Será possível que não se interesse por nada além de chá e das questões mais amplas da existência? Não tem vigor? Não tem personalidade? Será que, em outras palavras, ele não trepa?'.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“I gave a speech once,” he said suddenly and apparently unconnectedly. “You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number.” “Er, five,” said the mattress. “Wrong,” said Marvin. “You see?” The mattress was much impressed by this and realized that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“But how are you, metalman?” said Ford. “Very depressed.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It might not even have made much difference to them if they’d known exactly how much power the President of the Galaxy actually wielded: none at all. Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“They did not realize that because of the quasi-reciprocal and circular nature of all Improbability calculations, anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Esta no es la historia de la muchacha. Sino la de aquella catástrofe terrible y estúpida, y la de algunas de sus consecuencias. También es la historia de un libro, titulado Guía del autoestopista galáctico; no se trata de un libro terrestre, pues nunca se publicó en la Tierra y, hasta que ocurrió la terrible catástrofe, ningún terrícola lo vio ni oyó hablar de él.”
― Douglas Adams, Los autoestopistas galácticos: Guía del autoestopista galáctico, El restaurante del fin del mundo, La vida, el universo y todo lo demás

“Era tempo, diceva l'oroscopo, di agire con positiva fermezza, prendere ardue decisioni, vedere cosa occorresse fare e farlo. Era tutto assai difficile per lui, ma, sapeva il Capo, nessuno aveva mai detto che fare cose difficili non fosse difficile.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, it suggests, and try it. The first part is easy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“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 Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem”
― Douglas Adams

“He felt the way he imagined an angel must feel doing its celebrated dance on the head of a pin while being counted by philosophers”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“They looked at each other for a moment.

The moment became a longer moment, and suddenly it was a very long moment, so long one could hardly tell where all the time was coming from.

For Arthur, who could usually contrive to feel self-conscious if left alone with a Swiss cheese plant, the moment was one of sustained revelation. He felt on the sudden like a cramped and zoo-born animal who wakes up one morning to find the door to his cage handing quietly open and the savanna stretching gray and pink to the distant rising sun, while all around new sounds are waking.

He wondered what the new sounds were as he gazed at her openly wondering face and her eyes that smiled with a shared surprise.

He hadn't realized that life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers to the questions you continually ask of it, had never consciously deleted it or recognized its tones until it now said something it had never said to him before, which was "yes.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“How to Leave the Planet 1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it’s very important that you get away as soon as possible.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“This is a recorded announcement,” it said, “as I’m afraid we’re all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit …” (“A voice from ancient Magrathea!” shouted Zaphod. “Okay, okay,” said Ford.) “… but regrets,” continued the voice, “that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you. If you would care to leave your name and the address of a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“You know what a learning experience is? A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Bırak geçmiş kendi kendine kalsın ve yaşadığın an geleceğe doğru ilerlesin diye düşünüyordu.”
― Douglas Adams, Guide to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? ‘Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’” “I reject that entirely,” said Dirk, sharply. “The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something which works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, ‘Yes, but he or she simply wouldn’t do that.’” “Well, it happened to me today, in fact,” replied Kate. “Ah yes,” said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump, “your girl in the wheelchair – a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday’s stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don’t know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“How can you tell there's anything out there?' said the man politely. 'The door's closed.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“San Francisco, which the Guide describes as a “good place to go. It’s very easy to believe that everyone you meet there also is a space traveler. Starting a new religion for you is just their way of saying ‘hi.’ Until you’ve settled in and got the bang of the place it is best to say ‘no’ to three questions out of any given four that anyone may ask you, because there are some very strange things going on there, some of which an unsuspecting alien could die of.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it,’ said Marvin. ‘And what happened?’ pressed Ford. ‘It committed suicide,’ said Marvin”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What did “psychosassic” mean? It was his own word and he vigorously denied that it meant anything at all.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Don’t tell me about the future,” said Ford. “I’ve been all over the future. Spend half my time there. It’s the same as anywhere else. Anywhen else. Whatever. Just the same old stuff in faster cars and smellier air.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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

“he had had absolutely no cigarettes at all. Not one. They were out of his life, foresworn utterly. He didn’t need them. He could do without them. They merely nagged at him like mad and made his life a living hell,”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“Even traveling despondently is better than arriving here.” To welcome visitors the arrivals hall featured a picture of the president of NowWhat, smiling. It was the only picture anybody could find of him, and it had been taken shortly after he had shot himself, so although the photo had been retouched as well as could be managed, the smile it wore was rather a ghastly one.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million “pages” could be summoned at a moment’s notice.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle while fighting off a pack of wolves.”
― Douglas Adams

“Sabiendo que estaban reunidos [...] por una curiosa perversión de la física, como si las relaciones entre la gente estuvieran sujetas a las mismas leyes que regían la relación entre átomos y moléculas.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy