Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Marvin," dedi Trillian, yalnızca bu can sıkıcı varlıkla konuşurken kullandığı yumuşak ve nazik ses tonuyla, "madem bu kadar zamandır biliyordun, bize neden söylemedin?"
Marvin başını arkaya, ona doğru çevirdi.
"Sormadınız ki?" dedi basitçe.”
― Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Book 1 of 3

“And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“On Earth—when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass—the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm’s way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another—particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e., covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“–Ese Dios vuestro pone un manzano en medio de un jardín y dice: haced lo que queráis, chicos, pero de ningún modo comáis la manzana. Pero, sorpresa, se la comen y Él salta de detrás de un arbusto diciendo: «¡Os pillé!» Si no se la hubieran comido, habría dado lo mismo. –¿Por qué? –Porque si uno anda en tratos con alguien que tiene la mentalidad del que deja sombreros en la acera con ladrillos dentro, hay que tener la plena seguridad de que nunca abandonará su empeño. Al final terminará cazándote. –Pero ¿de qué hablas? –No importa, cómete la fruta.”
― Douglas Adams, Los autoestopistas galácticos: Guía del autoestopista galáctico, El restaurante del fin del mundo, La vida, el universo y todo lo demás

“Do you think they’re…”

“Where they are, how they are, there’s no way we can know and no way we can do anything about it. Do what I do.”

“What?”

“Don’t think about it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“The 'guide' is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
― Douglas Adams

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

“the Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Known Universe”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Hey, is there something in this water?’ he said. ‘Er, no, m’lud,’ said the Court Usher who had brought it to him, rather nervously. ‘Then take it away,’ snapped Judiciary Pag, ‘and put something in it. I got an idea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“What a strange book. How did we get a lift then?” “That’s the point, it’s out of date now,” said Ford, sliding the book back into its cover. “I’m doing the field research for the new revised edition, and one of the things I’ll have to do is include a bit about how the Vogons now employ Dentrassi cooks, which gives us a rather useful little loophole.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He returned to lie on his bed, and turned out the light. He lay still and quiet. He absorbed the enveloping darkness, slowly relaxed his limbs from end to end, eased and regulated his breathing, gradually cleared his mind of all thought, closed his eyes, and was completely incapable of getting to sleep.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, “Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Magrathea itself disappeared and its memory soon passed into the obscurity of legend. In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?” “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.” “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.” “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?” “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“little green person, my stomach could take you home and cuddle you all night for the mere idea.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“He was staring at the instruments with the air of one who is trying to convert Fahrenheit to centigrade in his head while his house is burning down.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Koľko ciest musí človek prejsť?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“A beach house isn’t just real estate. It’s a state of mind,’ said the man.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“The [Tiananmen] Gate was built during the Ming Dynasty and used by Emperors for making public appearances and proclamations. The Gate, like Tiananmen Square, has always been a major point of focus in the political history of China. If you climb up to the balcony, you can stand on the spot from which, on October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao proclamied the founding of the People's Republic of China. The spot is clearly marked, and there is an exhibition of photographs of the event clustered around it.

The view across the immensity of Tiananmen Square here is extraordinary. It is like looking across a plain from the side of a mountain. In political terms the view is more astounding yet, encompassing as it does a nation that comprises almost one-quarter of the population of this planet. All of the history of China is symbolically focused here, at this very point, and it is hard, as you stand there, not to be transfixed by the power of it. It is hard, also, not to be profoundly moved by the vision of the peasant from Shaoshan who seized that power in the name of the people and whom the people still revere, in spite of the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution, as the father of their nation.

And while we were standing on this spot, the spot where Mao stood when he proclaimed the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the music we were having played at us by the public address system was first "Viva España", and then the "Theme from Hawaii Five-O."

It was hard to avoid the feeling that somebody, somewhere, was missing the point. I couldn't even be sure it wasn't me.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“Svlad Cjelli. Popularly known as Dirk, though, again, “popular” was hardly right. Notorious, certainly; sought after, endlessly speculated about, those too were true. But popular? Only in the sense that a serious accident on the motorway might be popular—everyone slows down to have a good look, but no one will get too close to the flames. Infamous was more like it. Svlad Cjelli, infamously known as Dirk.”
― 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

“But the plans were on display . . .’
‘On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.’
‘That’s the display department.’
‘With a torch.’
‘Ah, well the lights had probably gone.’
‘So had the stairs.’
‘But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur, ‘yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I had been walking through the town trying to find a particular address, and being thoroughly lost I stopped to ask for directions from a man in the street. I knew this mightn’t be easy because I don’t speak German, but I was still surprised to discover just how much difficulty I was having communicating with this particular man. Gradually the truth dawned on me as we struggled in vain to understand each other that of all the people in Innsbruck I could have stopped to ask, the one I had picked did not speak English, did not speak French and was also deaf and dumb.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“If you wanted quick sex or a dirty fix or, God help you, a hamburger, that was where you went to get it. Here”
― 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

“I’d love to stay and help you save the Galaxy,’ insisted Zaphod, raising himself up onto his shoulders, ‘but I have the mother and father of a pair of headaches, and I feel a lot of little headaches coming on. But next time it needs saving, I’m your guy.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Glapitonner: profondément ému par le récit d'une tragédie personnelle.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“Ve ilk defa,' diye haykırdı neşeyle, 'sabah kalktığınızda kendinizi akşamdan kalma hissetmeyeceğinizden emin olabilirsiniz - çünkü başka sabah olmayacak!”
― Douglas Adams, Otostopçu'nun Galaksi Rehberi

“The history of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of idealism, struggle, despair, passion, success, failure and enormously long lunch-breaks.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“Hay una teoría que afirma que si alguien descubriera lo que es exactamente el Universo y el porqué de su existencia, desaparecería al instante y sería sustituido por algo aún más extraño e inexplicable.”
― Douglas Adams, Los autoestopistas galácticos: Guía del autoestopista galáctico, El restaurante del fin del mundo, La vida, el universo y todo lo demás

“One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn’t be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy