Douglas Adams > Quotes

“Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up;”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“He’s spending a year dead for tax reasons.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”
― Douglas Adams

“E' noto che esiste un numero infinito di mondi, per il semplice fatto che esiste uno spazio infinito atto a ospitarli.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“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. It looked insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words DON’T PANIC printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact that most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The first thing they saw on leaving the elevator was a long concrete wall with over fifty doors in it offering lavatory facilities for all of fifty major life forms. Nevertheless, like every parking lot in the Galaxy throughout the entire history of parking lots, this parking lot smelled predominantly of impatience.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Just supposing,” he said, “just supposing” --he didn’t know what was coming next, so he thought he’d just sit back and listen-- “that there was some extraordinary way in which you were very important to me, and that, though you didn’t know it, I was very important to you, but it all went for nothing because we only had five miles and I was a stupid idiot at knowing how to say something very important to someone I’ve only just met and not crash into lorries at the same time, what would you say…” He paused, helplessly, and looked at her.
“...I should do?”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The winning team shall be the first team that wins. Curiously”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

“Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real “wow, that’s big,” time. Infinity is just so big that, by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we’re trying to get across here.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“So long and thanks for all the fish.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But that can’t work, can it?” said Richard. “If we do that, then this won’t have happened. Don’t we generate all sorts of paradoxes?” Reg stirred himself from thought. “No worse than many that exist already,” he said. “If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t. It’s like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don’t hurt it. Not even major surgery if it’s done properly.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“La Guida galattica per gli autostoppisti nomina l’alcol. Dice che la miglior bevanda alcolica che esiste è il Gotto Esplosivo Pangalattico. Dice che quando si beve un Gotto Esplosivo Pangalattico si ha l’impressione che il cervello venga spappolato da una fetta di limone legata intorno a un grosso mattone d’oro.”
― Douglas Adams, Guida galattica per gli autostoppisti

“Mixture of pleasure and pain,” he muttered. “Always does the trick.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the color blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to ballpoint life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid lifestyle, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed,” it said. Its voice was low and hopeless.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Would you like to see the menu?” he said. “Or would you like to meet the Dish of the Day?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Six pints of bitter.' said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and Groom. 'And quickly please, the world's about to end.”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy (BBC MP3 CD Audio) by Douglas Adams

“Wail, wail, screech, wail, honk, honk, squeak went the bagpipes, increasing the captain's already considerable pleasure at the thought that any moment now they might stop.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Ford,” he said, “you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“You are a driver," he said, "and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, i.e.
meaning merely somebody who occupies the driving seat of what I will for the
moment call - but I use the term strictly without prejudice - a car while it is
proceeding along the road, of stupendous, I would even say verging on the
superhuman, lack of skill. Do you catch my drift?”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“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 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.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Eddies,” said Ford, “in the space-time continuum.” “Ah,” nodded Arthur, “is he. Is he.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“nothing but a gnab gib.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“[...] sapevano di essersi trovate insieme non di oro propria volontà, o per semplice coincidenza, ma per qualche incomprensibile bizzarria della fisica, quasi che i rapporti fra le persone fossero soggetti alle stesse leggi che governano i rapporti tra gli atomi e le molecole.”
― Douglas Adams, Guida galattica per gli autostoppisti

“But thanks for taking an interest,” said the Vogon guard. “Bye now.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Who said anything about panicking?’ snapped Arthur. ‘This is still just the culture shock. You wait till I’ve settled down into the situation and found my bearings. Then I’ll start panicking!”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“My doctor says that I have a malformed public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber,”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Yeah. Listen, I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father was Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, my grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third . . .’ ‘What?’ ‘There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine. Now concentrate!”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“Belgium,” said the girl, “I hardly like to say it.” “Belgium?” exclaimed Arthur. A drunken seven-toed sloth staggered past, gawked at the word and threw itself backward at a blurry-eyed pterodactyl, roaring with displeasure. “Are we talking,” said Arthur, “about the very flat country, with all the EEC and the fog?” “What?” said the girl. “Belgium,” said Arthur. “Raaaaaarrrchchchchch!” screeched the pterodactyl. “Grrruuuuuurrrghhhh,” agreed the seven-toed sloth. “They must be thinking of Ostend Hoverport,” muttered Arthur. He turned back to the girl. “Have you ever been to Belgium in fact?” he asked brightly and she nearly hit him. “I think,” she said, restraining herself, “that you should restrict that sort of remark to something artistic.” “You sound as if I just said something unspeakably rude.” “You did.” In today’s modern Galaxy there is of course very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. So, for instance, when in a recent national speech the Financial Minister of the Royal World Estate of Quarlvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another and the fact that no one had made any food for a while and the king seemed to have died and most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy was now in what he called “one whole joojooflop situation,” everyone was so pleased that he felt able to come out and say it that they quite failed to note that their entire five-thousand-year-old civilization had just collapsed overnight. But even though words like “joojooflop,” “swut,” and “turlingdrome” are now perfectly acceptable in common usage there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the Galaxy except for use in Serious Screenplays. There is also, or was, one planet where they didn’t know what it meant, the stupid turlingdromes. —”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy