Quotes from Douglas Adams

In order to fly,all one must do is simply miss the ground

Well, let us say inexplicable. There is no point in using the word impossible to describe something that has clearly happened. But it cannot be explained by anything we know.

Arthur alzò gli occhi. "Ford!" disse "qui fuori c'è un'incredibile moltitudine di scimmie che vogliono parlarci di una sceneggiatura dell'Amleto che avrebbero appena finito di scrivere!

When one day an expedition was sent to the spatial coordinates that Voojagig had claimed for the planet they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.

I've been talking about how electronic books will come, and how important they will be, and all of a sudden Stephen King publishes one. I feel a complete idiot, as it should have been me.

A quick change of magnification brought them into close focus—two massively real rockets thundering through the sky. The suddenness of it was shocking.

When it's fall in New York, the air smells as if someone's been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe, the best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a building.

It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some creature, without forming an opinion about them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.

Usually it's very relaxing to be with someone who's so self-absorbed, because it doesn't make any demands on you.

One, a young man, was tall, thin and angular; even muffled inside a heavy dark coat he walked a little like an affronted heron. The

The other was small, roundish, and moved with an ungainly restlessness, like a number of elderly squirrels trying to escape from a sack. His own age was on the older side of completely indeterminate. If

always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.

Impact minus twenty seconds, guys …" said the computer. "Then turn the bloody engines back on!" bawled Zaphod. "Oh, sure thing, guys," said the computer. With a subtle roar the engines cut back in, the ship smoothly flattened out of its dive and headed back toward the missiles again.

He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which.

But by an extraordinarily lucky chance they had not yet fully corrected their flight paths to that of the erratically weaving ship, and they passed right under it. "And the sweet silver song of the lark.'… Revised impact time fifteen seconds, fellas…. 'Walk on through the wind …

You know because you've been it, and I know because I'm dead and it gives one such a wonderfully uncluttered perspective.

Why doesn't anyone turn on this Improbability Drive thing?" he said. "We could probably reach that." "What are you, crazy?" said Zaphod. "Without proper programming anything could happen.

But how are you, metalman?' said Ford. 'Very depressed.' 'What's up?' 'I don't know,' said Marvin, 'I've never been there.' 'Why,' said Ford squatting down beside him and shivering, 'are you lying face down in the dust?' 'It's a very effective way of being wretched,' said Marvin. 'Don't pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me.

if you've never been through a matter transference beam before you've probably lost some salt and protein. The beer you had should have cushioned your system a bit.

The scientists chaps had been very insistent that everything was going to be perfectly all right providing nobody panicked and everybody got on and did their bit in an orderly fashion.

As you gazed into the polished surface of the marble the vague forms of instruments became visible, and as you touched them the instruments materialized instantly under your hands. Looked at from the correct angles the mirrors appeared to reflect all the required data read-outs, though it was far from clear where they were reflected from.

he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

What? Excuse me? "La, a note to follow so . . ." What kind of lame excuse for a line is that? Well, it's obvious what kind of line it is. It's a placeholder.

Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an infinitely large Universe such as, for instance, the one in which we live, most things one could possibly imagine and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere.