Douglas Adams > Quotes

“His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn't got anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw, his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered around in an aimless fashion. For a second or so the brain tried to catch the left hand without letting go of the mouth and simultaneously tried to think about what was buried in the ice, which is probably why the legs went and Arthur dropped restfully to the ground.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Do you find coming to terms with the mindless tedium of it all presents an interesting challenge?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“How many roads must a man walk down?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Marvin was humming ironically because he hated humans so much.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea
into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“It all sounds rather naive and sentimental to be talking about children laughing and dancing and singing together when we all know perfectly well that what children do in real life is snarl and take drugs.”
― Douglas Adams

“Time affords us the ability to blame past errors on others while whole heartedly pronouncing our futures successes.”
― Douglas Adams

“Come on,” he droned, “I’ve been ordered to take you down to the bridge. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? ’Cos I don’t.”
He turned and walked back to the hated door.
“Er, excuse me,” said Ford following after him, “which government owns this ship?”
Marvin ignored him.
“You watch this door,” he muttered, “it’s about to open again. I can tell by the intolerable air of smugness it suddenly generates.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“There was no way his imagination could feel the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parent and his sister had gone. No reaction.He thought of all the people he had been close to. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket two days before and felt a sudden stab: the supermarket was gone, everyone in it was gone! Nelson’s Column had gone! and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry! From now on Nelson’s Column only existed in his mind. England only existed in his mind. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him.
He tried again: America, he thought, has gone. He couldn’t grasp it, He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He’d never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, has sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every “Bogart” movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonald’s, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald’s hamburger.
He passed out.”
― Douglas Adams

“Q: Do you feel concerned that after all this work, people won't treat [Starship Titanic] with the gravity of, say, a movie or a book? That they won't treat it as an art form?

D.A.: I hope that's the case, yes. I get very worried about this idea of art. Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity. ... [I]f somebody wants to come along and say, "Oh, it's art," that's as may be. I don't really mind that much. But I think that's for other people to decide after the fact. It isn't what you should be aiming to do. There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth." ... I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don't think they're doing art, but merely practicing a craft, and working as good craftsmen. ... I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.”
― Douglas Adams

“It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them.”
― Douglas Adams

“I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The waiter approached.
'Would you like to see the menu?' he said. 'Or would you like to meet the Dish of the Day?'
'Huh?' said Ford.
'Huh?' said Arthur.
'Huh?' said Trillian.
'That’s cool,' said Zaphod. 'We'll meet the meat.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
― 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. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Alone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the 'Grass is Greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence.”
― Douglas Adams

“I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“The President of the Universe holds no real power. His sole purpose is to take attention away from where the power truly exists...”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this.
The previous sentence makes sense. That is not the problem.
This is:
Change.
Read it through again and you'll get it.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“I've had the sort of day that would make St. Francis of Assisi kick babies.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Who is this god person anyway?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying 'And another thing...' twenty minutes after admitting he'd lost the argument.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“He learned to communicate with birds and discovered their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with windspeed, wingspans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Stomp stomp.
Whirr.
Pleased to be of service.
Shut up.
Thank you.
Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp.
Whirr.
Thank you for making a simple door very happy.
Hope your diodes rot.
Thank you. Have a nice day.
Stomp stomp stomp stomp.
Whirr.
It is my pleasure to open for you...
Zark off.
...and my satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.
I said zark off.
Thank you for listening to this message.”
― Douglas Adams

“It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much, the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons…”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy