Douglas Adams Quotes

DouglasAdams

Suggestion: have care when correcting another's quote. DNA made changes as he went from radio to television to novel. There may be more than one correct version. -- DanilSuits

The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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

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.

They lived in fear of the time they called, "the coming of the Great White Hankerchief".

They had three battle spaceships: The G.S.S. "Daring", the G.S.S. "Audacity", and the G.S.S. "Suicidal Insanity." (quoted from memory)

"It'll all end in tears! I know it!"

Because he's an ignorant monkey who doesn't know better.

Life... Don't talk to me about life.

Marvin: "Do you want me to stick my head in a bucket of water, I've got one with me"
Trillian: "Who is it?"
Zaphod: "It's Marvin, he's just phoned up to wash his head at us"

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

It hung in the air in exactly the way that bricks don't.

"We're intelligent caring guys who you'd probably like if you met us socially."
"I write novels"
"He writes them in crayon. And he's not had any published so let me tell you he's in a mean mood."

Flying's easy. Just throw yourself at the ground and miss.

Zaphod: "Hand me the Rap Rod, Plate Captain!"
Waiter: "I'm sorry sir?"
Zaphod: "The phone, waiter, the phone. Gee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off."
Waiter: "Our whats, sir?"

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "oh no... not again!" Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that, we should know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

Later books in the series explain why the bowl of petunias thought that. It still doesn't tell us any more about the nature of the universe.

Arthur: "And this is Eddie's sofa, is it?"

Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

We most definitely do represent the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons; we want that machine off, and we want it off now.

...

After all, what's the point of sitting up all night debating if there may (or may not) be a God, if this machine calls you in the morning with his phone number.

...

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

I speak of none but the machine which is to come after me.

Perhaps I'm old and tired but I 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 keep yourself occupied.

"I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox"
"Are you the Zaphod Beeblebrox?"
"No, I'm a Zaphod Beeblebrox - I come in six-packs!"

The Editor-in-Chief's a guy named Maxelcat. I heard they had to buy a new planet because he got so fat he kept sliding off the old one.

Ford: "It's rather unpleasantly like being drunk"
Arthur: "What's so unpleasant about being drunk ?"
Ford: "Try asking a glass of water"
Ford and Arthur: "... aaarrrrrgggghhhh ..."
Arthur: "I'll never be cruel to a gin and tonic again"

"There's an infinite number of monkeys here who want to talk to you about this script for Hamlet they've written."

He's on an intergalactic cruise ... In his office?

Time is an illusion -- lunchtime doubly so.

Don't try to outweird me, six-eyes, I get stranger things than you with my breakfast cereal!

Arthur: What good is a dead telephone sanitizer?
Ford: Believe me, they're the best kind.

Here's a warm welcome to all the intelligent life forms out there. And to the rest of you... the trick is to bang the rocks together, guys.

If we're lucky, he'll throw us off the ship.
And if we're not?
He'll read us some of his poetry first.

(Zaphod, emerging from an excellent parody of a nightclub) - "That must be the worst good time I've ever had."

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. -- Mostly Harmless

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -- Mostly Harmless

I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox. My father was Zaphod Beeblebrox II, my grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox III, and my great-grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox IV. There was an accident with a time-machine and a prophylactic.

Arthur: You know, it's at times like this that I really wish I had listened to what my mother had told me when I was young.
Ford: Why, what did she say?
Arthur: (crossly) I don't know, I didn't listen.

Inventing the wheel, and the long delay in doing so: Ok, if you're so clever, you tell us what colour it should be.

If you can't scratch glass with it, I don't accept it.

Almost but not quite entirely unlike tea.

The shoe event-horizon.

We are going to get lynched, you know that?

42. (The answer to life, the universe, and everything. But what is the question?)

Stavromula Beta

Upon discovering the question: I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe

(Douglas would later say "Nobody makes jokes in base 13")

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Source: http://famousquotesabout.com/by/Douglas-Adams#ixzz0x9VftvrA

When asked about how work was coming along on the HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy movie:

: "The Hollywood process is like trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it."

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