Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Could be. I’m a pretty dangerous dude when I’m cornered.”
“Yeah,” said the voice from under the table, “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized that she must be exploring her subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was really clear what the other nine tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Nobody got murdered before lunch. But nobody. People weren't up to it. You needed a good lunch to get both the blood-sugar and blood-lust levels up.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong.

This was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."

This has led to some interesting consequences. For instance, when the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Tralal literally (it said "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists: instead of "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists"), they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“It is most gratifying," it said, "that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your custom in future lives ... thank you.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody.”
― Douglas Adams

“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“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?”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Arthur shook his head and sat down. He looked up.
“I thought you must be dead …” he said simply.
“So did I for a while,” said Ford, “and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“If everyone knew exactly what I was going to say, then there would be no point in my saying it, would there?”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Very deep. You should send that in to the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“What, are you, crazy?' 'It's a possibility I haven't ruled out yet', said Zaphod quietly. 'I know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of twenty-five thousand to one against and falling, and we will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“How do you feel?" he asked him.
"Like a military academy," said Arthur. "Bits of me keep on passing out.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“In the old days, writers used to sit in front of a typewriter and stare out of the window. Nowadays, because of the marvels of convergent technology, the thing you type on and the window you stare out of are now the same thing.”
― Douglas Adams

“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

“I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn’t weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century. “So it isn’t the original building?” I had asked my Japanese guide.
“But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question.
“But it’s burnt down?”
“Yes.”
“Twice.”
“Many times.”
“And rebuilt.”
“Of course. It is an important and historic building.”
“With completely new materials.”
“But of course. It was burnt down.”
“So how can it be the same building?”
“It is always the same building.”
I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survives. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what's more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“In an infinite Universe anything can happen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat when its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“...they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

“The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like.

It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity—distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very very big, so big that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself.”
― Douglas Adams