Quotes from Douglas Adams

How do you feel? he asked him. Like a military academy, said Arthur. Bits of me keep on passing out.

Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat when its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.

In the old days, writers used to sit in front of a typewriter and stare out of the window. Nowadays, because of the marvels of convergent technology, the thing you type on and the window you stare out of are now the same thing.

If everyone knew exactly what I was going to say, then there would be no point in my saying it, would there?

You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." "Er, five," said the mattress. "Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?

We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.

How many roads must a man walk down?

There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.

What, are you, crazy?' 'It's a possibility I haven't ruled out yet', said Zaphod quietly. 'I know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.

Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.

In an infinite Universe anything can happen.

And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.

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.

It all sounds rather naive and sentimental to be talking about children laughing and dancing and singing together when we all know perfectly well that what children do in real life is snarl and take drugs.

The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what's more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.

Time affords us the ability to blame past errors on others while whole heartedly pronouncing our futures successes.

Marvin was humming ironically because he hated humans so much.

It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.

He had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his method of "Zen" navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.

Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

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.

I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous.