Quotes from Douglas Adams

What are you after? ... Well, said Zaphod airily, It's partly the curiosity, partly a sense of adventure, but mostly I think it's the fame and the money....

The sky clenched, a mountain of mud convulsed, earth and sky bellowed at each other, there was a horrible pinkness, a sudden greenness, a lingering orangeness that stained the clouds, and then the light sank and the night at last was deeply, hideously dark. There was no further sound other than the soft tinkle of water. But

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness. The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation chairs—strapped in. Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of a bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race

Ten million years, Earthman, can you conceive of that kind of time span? A galactic civilization could grow from a single worm five times over in that time. Gone." He paused. "Well, that's bureaucracy for you

He goggled at her as if she'd said something very strange about beetroots.

Delili?i evlerine kirac? alm?? haneler vard?.

The sky, from one horizon to another, from east to west, from north to south, was utterly and completely black.

These muddles were as nothing to the ones which historians had to try and unravel once time trouble was discovered and battles started pre-erupting hundred of years before the issues even arose.

In the great debate that has raged for centuries about what, if anything, happens to you after death, be it heaven, hell, purgatory or extinction, one thing has never been in doubt—that you would at least know the answer when you were dead. Gordon Way was dead, but he simply hadn't the slightest idea what he was meant to do about it.

That's right," shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it.

There was only one ambition that anyone on the planet ever had, and that was to leave.

Insanity is a gradual process - don't rush it.

Perhaps I would like a glass of whisky. Yes, that seems more likely.

The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do his hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.

The The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that if you hold a lungful of air you can survive in the total vacuum of space for about thirty seconds. However, it does go on to say that what with space being the mindboggling size it is the chances of getting picked up by another ship within those thirty seconds are two to the power of two hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and nine to one against.

There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambigiuous phyiscal universe.

What have you done to it, Monkeyman? - he breathed. - Well, - said Arthur, - nothing in fact. It's just that I think a short while ago it was trying to work out how to... - Yes? - Make me some tea. - That's right guys, - the computer sang out suddenly, - just coping with that problem right now, and wow, it's a biggy. Be with you in a while. It lapsed back into a silence that was only matched for sheer intensity by the silence of the three people staring at Arthur Dent.

Oh, er, well the hatchway in front of us will open in a few moments and we will shoot out into deep space I expect and asphyxiate. If you take a lungful of air with you you can last for up to thirty seconds, of course.

Si los seres humanos no dejan de hacer ejercicio con los labios, su cerebro empieza a funcionar.

La prima cosa da capire a proposito degli universi paralleli... è che non sono paralleli. È importante rendersi conto che, a rigore, non sono neppure universi, ma è molto più facile cercare di capirlo un po' più tardi, dopo che ci si è resi conto che tutto quello che si è capito fino a quel momento non è vero.

Sawing a lady in half is easy. Sawing a lady in half and then joining her up together again is less easy, but can be done with practice.