Douglas Adams Quotes

Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.

There are some people you like immediately, some whom you think you might learn to like in the fullness of time, and some that you simply want to push away from you with a sharp stick.

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.

Goosnargh," said Ford Prefect, which was a special Betelgeusian word he used when he knew he should say something but didn't know what it should be.

God's Final Message to His Creation: 'We apologize for the inconvenience.

The difference between us and a computer is that, the computer is blindingly stupid, but it is capable of being stupid many, many million times a second.

Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terrible bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.

Six pints of bitter, said Ford Prefect. And quickly please, the world's about to end.

It's part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me.

If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action.

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

Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.

It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training.

Will you stop counting!' snarled Zaphod. 'Yes,' said Ford Prefect, 'in three minutes and thirty-five seconds.

Even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

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

My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.

Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged.

Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.

My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.

What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened.

We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win.

A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment.

Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.

When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.

A cup of tea would restore my normality.

I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: "Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end".

One always overcompensates for disabilities. I'm thinking of having my entire body surgically removed.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.

It is folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of their own eyes and ears.

There was one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole.

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

I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.

One is never alone with a rubber duck.

and we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere … and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons.

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

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.

The hardest assumption to challenge is the one you don't even know you are making.