Douglas Adams > Quotes

“It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in ‘It’s a nice day,’ or ‘You’re very tall,’ or ‘So this is it, we’re going to die.’ His first theory was that if human beings didn’t keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably seized up.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy of Five

“It was a little like a pikka bird, only rather smaller. That is to say, in fact it was larger, or to be more exact, precisely the same size or, at least, not less than twice the size. It was also both a lot bluer and a lot pinker than pikka birds, while at the same time being perfectly black.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“It is a farewell gift from the dolphins,” said Wonko in a low quiet voice, “the dolphins whom I loved and studied, and swam with, and fed with fish, and even tried to learn their language, a task which they seemed to make impossibly difficult, considering the fact that I now realize they were perfectly capable of communicating”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I’m sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?” This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table. Richard continued, “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

“We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't, they win.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Gordon’un suçluluk duymanız için kullanabileceği, dünyanın en zengin, doğal ve manevi baskı kaynaklarına sahip olduğu ve her sabah bunun tonlarcasını taze taze kapınızın önüne dökebileceği çok bilinen bir şeydi...”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“The summer sun was sinking through the trees in the park, looking as if—let’s not mince words. Hyde Park is stunning. Everything about it is stunning except for the rubbish on Monday mornings. Even the ducks are stunning. Anyone who can go through Hyde Park on a summer’s evening and not feel moved by it is probably going through in an ambulance with the sheet pulled up over his face.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Sex but Have Been Forced to Find Out.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Kimsenin kuklası olmayacağım, özellikle de kendimin.”
― Douglas Adams, By Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Box set

“Listen, three eyes,” he said, “don’t you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Yeah, could you just sort of keep this robot with you and guard this end of the passageway. Okay?” “Guard?” said Arthur. “What from? You just said there’s no one here.” “Yeah, well, just for safety, okay?” said Zaphod. “Whose? Yours or mine?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know.
Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know.
Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about.
Amen.
Lord, Lord, Lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
Amen.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“You’re crazy, Zaphod,” he was saying, “Magrathea is a myth, a fairy story, it’s what parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to become economists,”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“But nobody’s ever been to look or search or rescue. There’s been absolutely nothing.” “Well, there wouldn’t be. It’s a whole complicated insurance thing. They just bury the whole thing. Pretend it never happened. The insurance business is completely screwy now. You know they’ve reintroduced the death penalty for insurance company directors?” “Really?” said Arthur. “No, I didn’t. For what offense?” Trillian frowned. “What do you mean, offense?” “I see.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“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

“One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I hoped that if someone tried to feed the remote descendant of a goat to the remote descendant of a lizard for the sake of little more than a shudder of entertainment, that it would feel it was wrong. I hoped it wouldn't be too chicken to say so.”
― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

“He’s spending a year dead for tax reasons. I’ve got to sit down.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy of Five

“One of those nasty hushes had descended on the place, a sort of missile crisis sort of hush. Even”
― Douglas Adams, The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five

“The Guide even tells you how you can mix one yourself. Take the juice from one bottle of the Ol’ Janx Spirit, it says. Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V—Oh, that Santraginean seawater, it says. Oh, those Santraginean fish! Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzine is lost). Allow four liters of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it, in memory of all those happy hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia. Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hyper-mintextract, redolent of all the heady odors of the dark Qualactin Zones, subtle, sweet and mystic. Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian Suns deep into the heart of the drink. Sprinkle Zamphuor. Add an olive. Drink . . . but . . . very carefully . . . The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sells rather better than the Encyclopedia Galactica.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it is.
For when you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, ‘You are here.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“and the next day the parcel arrived. — This was all getting a bit eventful. In fact, when the parcel arrived, delivered by a kind of robot drone that dropped out of the sky making droning robot noises, it brought with it a sense, which gradually began to permeate through the whole village, that it was almost one event too many. It wasn’t the robot drone’s fault. All it required was Arthur Dent’s signature or thumbprint, or just a few scrapings of skin cells from the nape of his neck, and it would be on its way again. It hung around waiting, not quite sure what all this resentment was about.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“La vita sara' molto meno strana senza di te!
Arthur era sbalordito
- Sai - disse - credo sia la cosa piu' bella che mi sia mai stata detta.”
― Douglas Adams

“job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Damn it and blast it, he thought, and felt the need of some guidance and advice. He consulted the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He looked up "guidance" and it said "See under ADVICE". He looked up "advice" and it said "see under GUIDANCE".”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“but do you really think it’s wise under the circumstances? I mean, here we are on the run and everything, we must have the police of half the Galaxy after us by now, and we stop to pick up hitchhikers.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“When the hunt for new sources of energy had at one point got particularly frantic, one bright young chap suddenly spotted that one place which had never used up all its available energy was - the past. And with the sudden rush of blood to the head that such insights tend to induce, he invented a way of mining it that very same night, and within a year huge tracts of the past were being drained of all their energy and simply wasting away. Those who claimed that the past should be left unspoilt were accused of indulgingin an extremely expensive form of sentimentality.”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“One moment I was sitting in your ship feeling very depressed, and the next moment I was standing here feeling utterly miserable. An Improbability Field I expect.”
― Douglas Adams