Douglas Adams > Quotes

“İnsan Evrende ne kadar daha hızlı ve ne kadar uzağa giderse Evrendeki yeri de o kadar önemsiz görünüyor.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“It seemed somehow unnaturally dark and silent, even for a ship whose two-man crew was at that moment lying asphyxicated in a smoke-filled chamber several miles beneath the ground. It is one of those curious things that is impossible to explain or define, but one can sense when a ship is completely dead.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I’ll sue the council for every penny it’s got! I’ll have you hung, drawn and quartered! And whipped! And boiled . . . until . . . until . . . until you’ve had enough.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“Who can possibly rule, if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Mathematical analysis and computer modelling are revealing to us that the shapes and processes we encounter in nature -the way that plants grow, the way that mountains erode or rivers flow, the way that snowflakes or islands achieve their shapes, the way that light plays on a surface, the way the milk folds and spins into your coffee as you stir it, the way that laughter sweeps through a crowd of people — all these things in their seemingly magical complexity can be described by the interaction of mathematical processes that are, if anything, even more magical in their simplicity. Shapes that we think of as random are in fact the products of complex shifting webs of numbers obeying simple rules. The very word “natural” that we have often taken to mean ”unstructured” in fact describes shapes and processes that appear so unfathomably complex that we cannot consciously perceive the simple natural laws at work.They can all be described by numbers.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“You’re crazy, Zaphod,’ he was saying, ‘Magrathea is a myth, a fairy story, it’s what parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to become economists, it’s . .”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“Non tout baigne, tout ce qui est susceptible de biagner, baigne.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“THIS TIME THERE would be no witnesses.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Ah, a vida - disse Marvin, lúgubre. - Pode-se odiá-la ou ignorá-la, mas é impossível gostar dela.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“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. 2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House—(202) 456-1414—to have a word on your behalf with the guys at NASA. 3. If you don’t have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don’t have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try. 4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible. 5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it’s vitally important you get away before your phone bill arrives. Douglas Adams Los Angeles 1983 and London 1985/1986”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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 detected it or recognized its tones until it now said something it had never said to him before, which was “yes.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. Learn to be one with the joy of the moment.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

“The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“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 the products of a deranged imagination.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It was a charming and delightful day at Lord's as Ford and Arthur tumbled haphazardly out of a space-time anomaly and hit the immaculate turf rather hard.
The applause of the crowd was tremendous. It wasn't for them, but instinctively they bowed anyway, which was fortunate because the small red heavy ball which the crowd actually had been applauding whistled mere millimetres over Arthur's head. In the crowd a man collapsed.
They threw themselves back to the ground which 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 applause of the crowd had been rapidly succeeded by gasps of astonishment, and the awkward titters of hundreds of people who could not yet make up their minds about whether to believe what they had just seen or not.
"This your sofa?" said a voice.
"What was that?" whispered Ford.
Arthur looked up.
"Something blue," he said.
"Shape?" said Ford.
Arthur looked again.
"It is shaped," he hissed at Ford, with his brow savagely furrowing, "like a policeman."
They remained crouched there for a few moments, frowning deeply. The blue thing shaped like a policeman tapped them both on the shoulders.
"Come on, you two," the shape said, "let's be having you."
These words had an electrifying effect on Arthur. He leapt to his feet like an author hearing the phone ring and shot a series of startled glanced at the panorama around him which had suddenly settled down into something of quite terrifying ordinariness.
"Where did you get this from?" he yelled at the policeman shape.
"What did you say?" said the startled shape.
"This is Lord's Cricket Ground, isn't it?" snapped Arthur. "Where did you find it, how did you get it here? I think," he added, clasping his hand to his brow, "that I had better calm down." He squatted down abruptly in front of Ford.
"It is a policeman," he said, "What do we do?"
Ford shrugged.
"What do you want to do?" he said.
"I want you," said Arthur, "to tell me that I have been dreaming for the last five years."
Ford shrugged again, and obliged.
"You've been dreaming for the last five years," he said.
Arthur got to his feet.
"It's all right, officer," he said. "I've been dreaming for the last five years. Ask him," he added, pointing at Ford, "he was in it.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“there seemed to be something faintly odd about his semicousin that he couldn’t put his finger on. The fact that he had become President of the Galaxy was frankly astonishing, as was the manner of his leaving the post. Was there a reason behind it? 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 Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It may not be terribly important that from five thousand miles away you can reach into a university corridor and drop a Coca-Cola can, but it’s the first shot in the war of bringing to us a whole new way of communicating. So that, I think, is the fourth age of sand.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“And you saw yourself," said Gargravarr, "in relation to it all?"
"Oh, yeah yeah."
"But...what did you experience?"
Zaphod shrugged smugly.
"It just told me what I knew all the time. I'm a really terrific and great guy. Didn't I tell you, baby, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox!”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The main trade that was carried out was in the skins of the NowWhattian boghog but it wasn’t a very successful one because no one in their right minds would want to buy a NowWhattian boghog skin. The trade only hung on by its fingernails because there was always a significant number of people in the Galaxy who were not in their right minds.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“A bit like a preying mantis that doesn’t prey—a non-preying mantis if you like.”
― 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

“It is a West zone planet which by an inexplicable and somewhat suspicious freak of topography consists almost entirely of subtropical coastline. By an equally suspicious freak of temporal relastatics, it is nearly always Saturday afternoon just before the beach bars close. No adequate explanation for this has been forthcoming from the dominant life forms on Ursa Minor Beta, who spend most of their time attempting to achieve spiritual enlightenment by running round swimming pools, and inviting Investigation Officials from the Galactic Geo-Temporal Control Board to 'have a nice diurnal anomaly.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“I am here,’ said the voice slowly. ‘My body wanted to come but it’s a bit busy at the moment. Things to do, people to see.’ After what seemed like a sort of ethereal sigh it added, ‘You know how it is with bodies.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“IT CAN HARDLY be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression “As pretty as an airport.” Airports”
― 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

“Arthur could almost imagine Paul McCartney sitting with his feet up by the fire one evening”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Well, I’ve found the answer. Forgive me if you knew this already, perhaps I’m the last person in the world to find this out. Anyway, the answer is this: you grip the palmtop between both hands and you type with your thumbs. Seriously. It works.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Keşke gençken annemi dinleseydim diyorum.'
'Neden, ne derdi sana?'
'Bilmem, hiç dinlemedim ki.”
― Douglas Adams, Otostopçu'nun Galaksi Rehberi

“The human race is currently sitting round a rock on the other side of this hill making documentaries about themselves.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Forty-two.”
― Douglas Adams

“Raffia-wrapped bottles lurked hideously in the shadows.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy