Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Is there any tea on this spaceship?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“How far did we just travel?" he said.

"About ..." said Slartibartfast, "about two thirds of the way across the Galactic disc, I would say, roughly. Yes, roughly two thirds, I think."

"It's a strange thing," said Arthur quietly, "that the further and faster one travels across the Universe, the more one's position in it seems to be largely immaterial, and one is filled with a profound, or rather emptied of a ..."

"Yes, very strange," said Ford.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“monkey. I went along for the ride because I’d got some very safe money on him not doing it, and didn’t want him coming back with fake evidence.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“This must be Thursday, I could never get the hang of Thursdays.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts

“Bir şeyi görmen onun orada olduğu anlamına gelmez. Aynı şekilde bir şeyi görmemen de onun orada olmadığı anlamına gelmez. Her şey algılarının senin dikkatini nereye yönelttiğine bağlıdır.”
― Douglas Adams, Otostopçu'nun Galaksi Rehberi

“Nunca renunció formalmente. Una mañana se limitó a salir tarde de su despacho y no ha vuelto.
Aunque ya ha transcurrido más de un siglo, muchos miembros del personal de la Guía siguen conservando la idea romántica de que sólo ha salido a tomar un croissant de jamón, y que volverá a cumplir una tarde de trabajo continuado.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“For a moment or two the old man didn’t reply. He was staring at the instruments with the air of one who is trying to convert Fahrenheit to centigrade in his head whilst his house is burning down.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“There was a terrible ghastly silence. There was a terrible ghastly noise. There was a terrible ghastly silence. The”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Anyone who even notices, let alone calls attention to the curious, but utterly coincidental and meaningless fact that every world on which the Guide has ever set up an accounting department has shortly afterward perished in warfare or some natural disaster, is liable to get sued to smithereens.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Trilogy

“it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“We called ourselves The Reasonably Good Band, but in fact we weren’t. Our intention was to be the Beatles of the early eighties, but we got much better financial and legal advice than the Beatles ever did, which was basically ‘Don’t bother,”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. And”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“If you’d call it a robot,” muttered Arthur. “It’s more a sort of electronic sulking machine.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“he had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his method of ‘Zen’ navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

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

“And what’s happened to the Earth?”
“Ah. It’s been demolished.”
“Has it,” said Arthur levelly.
“Yes. It just boiled away into space.”
“Look,” said Arthur, “I’m a bit upset about that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Who better to capitalize on the media market then you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and maligning each other in the popular press, and so long as you have clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Eğer bir gün biri çıkıp da Evrenin hangi nedenle ve niçin burada var olduğunu keşfederse, Evrenin birdenbire yok olacağını ve yerini çok daha garip ve anlaşılmaz bir şeyin alacağını öne süren bir kuram vardır.

Bir başka kuramsa bunun zaten gerçekleştiğini ileri sürer.”
― Douglas Adams

“And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the tress had been a bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“So it can come as a shock to realise that the world we hear described by travellers of previous centuries (or even previous decades) and biologists of today really did exist. The state it's in now is only the result of what we've done to it, and the mildness of the disappointment we feel when we arrive somewhere and find that it's a bit tatty is only a measure of how far our own expectations have been degraded and how little we understand what we've lost. The people who do understand what we've lost are the ones who are rushing around in a frenzy trying to save the bits that are left.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Well, I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I’m afraid where you begin to suspect that if there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. And if it comes to a choice between spending yet another ten million years finding that out, and on the other hand just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise,” said Frankie.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Bu robot çok kadim bir demokrasiden geliyor, anlarsın ya ..."
- "Yani demek istediğin, o bir kertenkeleler dünyasından mı geliyor?"
- "Hayır, bu o kadar da basit bir şey değil. Hiçbir şey bu kadar açık değildir. Onun geldiği dünyada, halk halktır. Liderler ise kertenkele. Halk kertenkelelerden nefret eder ve kertenkeleler de halkı yönetirler."
- "Garip, bunun bir demokrasi olduğunu söylememiş miydin?"
- "Öyle dedim. Bir demokrasi."
- "O halde, halk neden kertenkelelerden kurtulmuyor?"
- "Dürüst olmak gerekirse, bu akıllarına gelmiyor. Hepsinin oy hakkı var ve bu yüzden oy verdikleri hükümetin aşağı yukarı istedikleri hükümet olması gerektiğini düşünüyorlar."
- "Yani, halkın kertenkeleler için mi oy verdiğini söylemek istiyorsun?"
- "Şey, evet, elbette."
- "Ama, niçin?"
- "Çünkü eğer bir kertenkeleye oy vermezlerse, yanlış bir kertenkele başa gelebilir.”
― Douglas Adams

“Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy of Five

“One encouraging thing the Guide does have to say on the subject of parallel universes is that you don’t stand the remotest chance of understanding it. You can therefore say “What?” and “Eh?” and even go cross-eyed and start to blither if you like without any fear of making a fool of yourself. The first thing to realize about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel. It is also important to realize that they are not, strictly speaking, universes either, but it is easiest if you don’t try to realize that until a little later, after you’ve realized that everything you’ve realized up to that moment is not true. The reason they are not universes is that any given universe is not actually a thing as such, but is just a way of looking at what is technically known as the WSOGMM, or Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash doesn’t actually exist either, but is just the sum total of all the different ways there would be of looking at it if it did.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Big, bulbous, ruddy buildings with vast ballrooms, grand, angular staircases, and as many turrets and crenellations as a recreational condom. The”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states that this has already”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“To give you an idea of the sort of place that Santa Fe is, I could bang on about the desert and the altitude and the light and the silver and turquoise jewelry, but the best thing is just to mention a traffic sign on the freeway from Albuquerque. It says, in large letters, GUSTY WINDS, and in smaller letters MAY EXIST.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

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

“He pointed down into the crater. ‘Is that robot yours?’ he said. ‘No,’ came a thin metallic voice from the crater, ‘I’m mine.’ ‘If you’d call it a robot,’ muttered Arthur. ‘It’s more a sort of electronic sulking machine.’ ‘Bring it,’ said the old man.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five