Quotes from Douglas Adams

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn't anything going on on the outside!

I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn't anything going on the outside!

Don't spin your wheels and stress. Take a deep breath, center yourself and make a plan.

In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal.

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays

Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no 'them' out there. It's just an awful lot of 'us.'

He had got himself a life. Now he had to find a purpose in it.

I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style

I find the difference, for me, between having no money and having quite a bit is that the bills get bigger. And that's it. The lifestyle doesn't change.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.

If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

The mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.

Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet.

We all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.

Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?

Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless.