Quotes from Douglas Adams

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.

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

NO ADMITTANCE. NOT EVEN TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME HERE. GO AWAY.

nothing but a gnab gib.

Bir ÅŸey olacaksa, olacakt?r... Herhangi bir ÅŸey ortaya ç?karken bir ÅŸeyi ortaya ç?k?yorsa, bir baÅŸka ÅŸeyin ortaya ç?kmas?na neden oluyor demektir... O ÅŸey her neyse, olurken, kendi kendisinin yeniden ortaya ç?kmas?na sebep oluyorsa, tekrar olacakt?r... Bununla birlikte, kronolojik bir s?ra izlenmesi ÅŸart deÄŸildir.

said Ford, "you've got three pints to get through." "Three pints?" said Arthur. "At lunchtime?" The man next to Ford grinned and nodded happily. Ford ignored him.

Quello che lo irritava di più era il fatto che la gente era solita chiedergli sempre per quale ragione era così irritato.

Assumptions are the things you don't know you're making, which is why it is so disorienting the first time you take the plug out of a wash basin in Australia and see the water spiralling down the hole the other way round. The very laws of physics are telling you how far you are from home.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It has been built on the fragmented remains of…it will be built on the fragmented…that is to say it will have been built by this time, and indeed has been—

Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up;

Mant?k belki iyi bir ÅŸeydi, ama evrim sürecinin de keÅŸfettiÄŸi gibi birtak?m sak?ncalar?n?n olduÄŸu da bir gerçekti. Mant?kl? düÅŸünebilen herhangi bir ÅŸeyin en az kendisi kadar mant?kl? düÅŸünebilen bir baÅŸka ÅŸey taraf?ndan kolayca aldat?labilmesi mümkündü.

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with.

there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Se ti chiedessi dove diavolo siamo – disse Arthur con voce fioca – potrei poi pentirmene? Ford si alzò. – Siamo in salvo – disse. – Oh, bene! – disse Arthur. – Siamo in una piccola cambusa – disse Ford – in una delle astronavi della Flotta Costruzioni Stradali Vogon. – Ah! – disse Arthur. – Questo è un modo di usare l'espressione in salvo che ancora non conoscevo.

What's so unpleasant about being drunk?' 'You ask a glass of water.

One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't.

the main reason he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.

You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!

I decided to call him Ford Prefect. (This was a joke that missed American audiences entirely, of course, since they had never heard of the rather oddly named little car, and many thought it was a typing error for Perfect.) I explained in the text that the minimal research my alien character had done before arriving on this planet had led him to think that this name would be "nicely inconspicuous." He had simply mistaken the dominant life form.

She was, after all, a mathematician and astrophysicist by training and a television presenter by experience, and what science she had forgotten over the years she was more than capable of making up by bluffing.

is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.

Al prin­ci­pio se creó el Uni­ver­so. Esto hizo que mucha gente se ca­brea­ra y fue re­co­no­ci­do de forma ge­ne­ra­li­za­da como una pé­si­ma idea.

Flare riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford to do it are among the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous—those who don't die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club's Après-Flare parties.

I prigionieri erano legati alle sedie di Degustazione Poetica. I vogon non si facevano illusioni riguardo all'accoglienza che le loro opere ricevevano generalmente. All'inizio i loro tentativi di composizione poetica avevano fatto parte del generale tentativo minaccioso e violento di farsi accettare come razza normalmente evoluta e civile, ma adesso l'unica cosa che li induceva a insistere nelle loro creazioni era esclusivamente la loro crudeltà.