Quotes from Douglas Adams

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious

When I was young I used to have this nightmare about dying. I used to lie awake at night screaming. All my schoolfriends went to heaven or hell, and I was sent to Southend.

Because the air was thick with animal hair and dust, my nose was continually inflamed and runny, and every fifteen seconds I would sneeze. Any thought I could not explore, develop, and bring to some logical conclusion within fifteen seconds would therefore be forcibly expelled from my head, along with a great deal of mucus.

Arthur didn't notice that the men were running from the bulldozers; he didn't notice that Mr. Prosser was staring hectically into the sky. What Mr. Prosser had noticed was that huge yellow somethings were screaming through the clouds. Impossibly huge yellow somethings. "And I will carry on jumping on them," yelled Arthur, still running, "until I get blisters, or I can think of anything even more unpleasant to do, and then …

The arkleseizure cometh!

I want to make a headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let¡s call it my stomach.

In fact, he had always done the bare minimum of research necessary to support these myths. He was lazy, and essentially what he did was allow people's enthusiastic credulity to do the work for him.

To give you an idea of the sort of place that Santa Fe is, I could bang on about the desert and the altitude and the light and the silver and turquoise jewelry, but the best thing is just to mention a traffic sign on the freeway from Albuquerque. It says, in large letters, GUSTY WINDS, and in smaller letters MAY EXIST.

And what's happened to the Earth? Ah. It's been demolished. Has is, said Arthur levelly. Yes. It just boiled away into space. Look, said Arthur, I'm a bit upset about that. Ford frowned to himself and seemed to roll the thought around his mind. Yes, I can understand that, he said at last.

And that reminds me: Random, I forbid you to marry a Vogon! RANDOM: You what? ARTHUR: Nothing. Just fulfilling a promise I made to myself a long time ago.

It was what he had waited for all these years, but when he had deciphered the signal pattern sitting alone in his small dark room, a coldness had gripped him and squeezed his heart. Of all the races in all of the Galaxy who could have come and said a big hello to planet Earth, he thought, didn't it just have to be the Vogons.

Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli: he was ideal presidency fodder.*

We were wrong about trains, we were wrong about planes, we were wrong about radio, we were wrong about phones, we were wrong about . . . well, for a voluminous list of the things we have been wrong about, you could do worse than dig out a copy of a book called The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky.

Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

IT CAN HARDLY be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." Airports

Bir ÅŸeyi görmeniz onun orada olduÄŸu anlam?na gelmediÄŸi gibi, bir ÅŸeyi görmemeniz onun orada olmad??? anlam?na gelmez. Just like seeing something doesn't mean it's there, not seeing something doesn't mean it isn't there. Wie bedeutet nicht etwas zu schauen, dass es da ist; etwas zu nicht schauen bedeutet nicht, dass es nicht da ist.

At intervals along the walls the tiles gave way to large mosaics—simple angular patterns in bright colors. Trillian stopped and studied one of them but could not interpret any sense in them. She called to Zaphod. "Hey, have you any idea what these strange symbols are?" "I think they're just strange symbols of some kind," said Zaphod, hardly glancing back. Trillian shrugged and hurried after him.

Bianchi lenzuoli irlandesi, appena inamidati, puliti, stirati, ben rimboccati - questi aggettivi erano per lui come una litania di desiderio. Da secoli nulla l'aveva attratto come ora le lenzuola. Non riusciva assolutamente a concepire come si potesse desiderare qualcos'altro. Lenzuola. E dormire. Dormire e lenzuola. Dormire nelle lenzuola. Dormire.

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.

Oh God," muttered Ford, slumped against a bulkhead. He started to count to ten. He was desperately worried that one day sentient life forms would forget how to do this. Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers.

The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'.

That isn't to say that if you get involved in a paradox a few things won't strike you as being very odd, but if you've got through life without that already happening to you, then I don't know which Universe you've been living in, but it isn't this one.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

Such music, he said. I'm not religious, but if I were I would say it was like a glimpse into the mind of God. Perhaps it was and i ought to be religious. I have to keep reminding myself that they didn't create the music, they only created the instrument which could read the score. And the score was life itself. And it's all up there.