Don't Panic Quotes

“All of my life I’ve been attracted by the idea of being a writer, but like all writers I don’t so much like writing as having written.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“In just about 50 years of radio and latterly TV listening and watching, this strikes me as the most fatuous, inane, childish, pointless, codswalloping drivel… It is not even remotely funny.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I was surprised and delighted to find a lot of letters from people in the early days would say, ‘I was terribly depressed and upset until I sat down and read your book. It’s really shown me the way up again.’ I wrote it to do this for myself, and it’s seemed to have the same effect on a lot of other people. I can’t explain it. Perhaps I’ve inadvertently written a self-help book.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The world was a poorer place for his passing.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“lt required all that just to be able to suddenly say Bang!" —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“What I do now on many occasions is have, say, an inconsequential idea for a throwaway line that seems quite neat, then I go to huge lengths to create the context in which to throw that line away and make it appear that it was just a throwaway line, when in fact you've constructed this huge edifice off which to chuck this line. It's a really exhausting way of writing but when it works..." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“I usually get very depressed when writing." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“Writing comes easy. All you have to do is stare at a blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“On the other hand, some of my favourite bits of actual writing are in that book: the Agrajag section, and the flying bit. I didn't revise any of the flying bit - it was all done first draft" —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“I always go off at tangents, but whereas before I'd follow the tangents and go on from there, this time I was determined to go back to the plot each time. The tangents remained purely as tangents." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“Really entertaining and fun —John Cleese
Much funnier than anything John Cleese has ever written —Terry Jones
I know for a fact that John Cleese hasn't read it —Graham Chapman
Who is John Cleese? —Eric Idle
Really entertaining and fun —Michael Palin

An American fan might have been forgiven for supposing that Douglas Adams, not Terry Gilliam, was the sixth member of the Python team.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“I had put it off and put it off and got extension after extension (all sorts of other things were going on at the time, like the stage show and the TV series), but eventually the managing director of Pan said, 'We've given you all these extensions and we have got to have it: sudden death or else, we have to have it in four weeks. Now, how far have you got with it?' I didn't like to tell him I hadn't started it; it seemed unfair on the poor chap's heart." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“You map out a plot, and you write the first scene, and inevitably the first scene isn't funny and you have to do something else, and you finally get the scene to be funny but it's no longer about what it was meant to be about, so you have to jack in the plot you had in mind and do a new one..." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“The medium dictates the style of the show, and transferring from one to another means you're going against the grain the whole time. It's the point where you go against the grain that you come up with the best bits. The bits that were the easiest to transfer were the least interesting bits of the TV show." —Douglas Adams”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“The recordings soon reached the point at which the cast had caught up with the author: "They were recording part of the show in one part of the studio, while I was in another part of the studio actually writing the next scene. And this escalated to the point where the last show was being mixed in Maida Vale about half an hour before it was due to be broadcast from Broadcasting House. At which point the tape got wound round the capstan, and they had to take the tape recorder apart to unwind it, then get it onto a motorbike to be taken to Broadcasting House. At one point, we nearly sent them the first half of the tape, then we were going to unwind the second half and get it down to Broadcasting House before they had finished playing the first half. Geoffrey Perkins, Paddy Kingsland and Lisa Braun all deserved medals for that!”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“FORD AND ZAPHOD: Zaglabor astragard! Hootrimansion Bambriar! Bangliatur Poosbladoooo!
ARTHUR: What the hell are you doing?
FORD: It's an ancient Betelgeuse death anthem. It means, after this, things can only get better.
THEY START TO SING AGAIN. THE COMPUTER BANK EXPLODES. END CREDITS.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“As with everything Douglas had done, the book was late. Apocryphal stories have grown up about Douglas Adams's almost superhuman ability to miss deadlines. Upon close inspection, they all appear to be true. The story about the first book is this: after he had been writing it for as long past the deadline as he could get away with, Pan Books telephoned Douglas and said, "How many pages have you done?"
He told them.
"How long have you got to go?" He told them.
"Well," they said, making the best of a bad job, "Finish the page you are on, and we'll send a motorbike round to pick it up in half an hour.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“The pressure was fantastic. We were writing it hours before it was due to be recorded. (Later on, in the second series, things got really silly: he was writing during the recording.)”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“Geoffrey Perkins tells a slightly different story, explaining that, "Douglas was thrown out of the director's cubicle from about halfway through the first series onwards, because he'd get quite excited about putting bits and pieces into scenes. You'd just finish a scene and he would say, 'I've been thinking... we should go back and do it again.'
'Why?'
'Because I think we should have something going Bloobledoo-bledoobledoo-blebloobledoo-blebob! In the background...”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

“Every word is a gem… it’s only the order they’re put in that worries me —Terry Jones”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Geoffrey himself had no idea how to go about producing Hitchhiker’s, but was relieved to discover, over a meal with Douglas before the second show, that neither of them knew what they were doing. This made things much easier.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The Doctor brusquely explains that the English game of cricket derives from one of those curious freaks of racial memory which can keep images alive in the mind eons after their true significance has been lost in the mists of time. Of all the races in the Galaxy only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific star wars that ever sundered the Universe and transform it into what is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game. It is for that reason that the Earth has always been regarded slightly askance by the rest of the Galaxy—it has inadvertently been guilty of the most grotesquely bad taste.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“REASSURANCE PANEL In case of doubt, confusion or alarm, please touch this panel.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The following instructions are for you: Leave the planet as quickly as possible. Do not procrastinate. Do not panic.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“That was where it came from, really, toothpicks.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“I had a slight case of ‘Farnham’—that’s the feeling you get at four in the afternoon, when you haven’t got enough done.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“One is told at every level of the entertainment industry that the American audience does not like or understand English humour. We are told that at every level except that of the audience, who, as far as I can see, love it. It’s everybody else, the people whose job it is to tell you what the audiences like; but the people I meet here, and in the US, who are fans, are very much the same type of people. “The most commonly heard plea from American audiences is ‘Don’t let them Americanise it! We get all sorts of pabulum over here…!”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The show was to be one of the many British comedy shows that had been turned into American comedy shows.* (There is a long and noble tradition of this, that includes dragging such shows as Steptoe and Son, Fawlty Towers, and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin across the Atlantic, recasting them, rewriting them, and frequently removing whatever it was that happened to make the show funny in the first place.)”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Others have to do with David Learner, the actor inside Marvin, who, due to the length of time it took to get in and out of the Marvin costume, was abandoned in the clay pit during the occasional rain showers during filming, protected from rust by an umbrella.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Footnote for Americans, who may not understand how a pantomime can be performed on radio: this is one of those problems you’re just going to have to learn to live with.”
― Neil Gaiman, Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy