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Douglas Adams

80 quotes

“Stotting" is jumping upward with all four legs simultaneously. My advice: do not die until you've seen a large black poodle stotting in the snow.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no problem so complicated that you can't find a very simple answer to it if you look at it right … Or put it another way, "The future of computer power is pure simplicity.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am fascinated by religion. (That's a completely different thing from believing in it!) It has had such an incalculably huge effect on human affairs. What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it? I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Brontë, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up leaning against a mantelpiece, in order to prove it could be done. This is not quite true, in fact. 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.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“… Most of the words that airline staff used, or rather most of the sentences into which they were habitually arranged, had been worked so hard that they had died.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“# Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“# Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“# Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, may have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there's plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that's a very dangerous thing to say.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, (1998)
“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Douglas Adams. The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. New York: Random House, 2002, 135–136.
“What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?" This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table. Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've learned something about it yourself.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!" "The what?" said Richard. "The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..." "Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity." "Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissive shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." … "You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap … ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a couple of days before Kate Schechter became aware of any of these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world. She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabin trunks were full of vivid, and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine-tenths were full of penguins, which surprised her. Insofar as she recognised at all that she was dreaming, she realised that she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The room was not a room to elevate the soul. Louis XIV, to pick a name at random, would not have liked it, would have found it not sunny enough, and insufficiently full of mirrors. He would have desired someone to pick up the socks, put the records away, and maybe burn the place down. Michelangelo would have been distressed by its proportions, which were neither lofty nor shaped by any noticeable inner harmony or symmetry, other than that all parts of the room were pretty much equally full of old coffee mugs, shoes and brimming ashtrays, most of which were now sharing their tasks with each other. The walls were painted in almost precisely that shade of green which Raffaello Sanzio would have bitten off his own right hand at the wrist rather than use, and Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an hour later armed with a navigable river. It was, in short, a dump, and was likely to remain so for as long as it remained in the custody of Mr Svlad, or 'Dirk', Gently, né Cjelli.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She held the car grimly to the road as it negotiated the bends with considerable difficulty and the straight sections with only slightly less. The car had landed her in court on one occasion when one of its front wheels had sailed off on a little expedition of its own and nearly caused an accident. The police witness in court had referred to her beloved Citroën as "the alleged car" and the name had subsequently stuck. She was particularly fond of the alleged car for many reasons. If one of its doors, for instance, fell off she could put it back on herself, which is more than you could say for a BMW.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Immortals are what you wanted," said Thor in a low, quiet voice. "Immortals are what you got. It is a little hard on us. You wanted us to be for ever, so we are for ever. Then you forget about us. But we are still for ever. Now at last, many are dead, many are dying," he then added in a quiet voice, "but it takes a special effort." "I can't even begin to understand what you're talking about," said Kate, "you say that I, we —" "You can begin to understand," said Thor, angrily, "which is why I have come to you. Do you know that most people hardly see me? Hardly notice me at all? It is not that we are hidden. We are here. We move among you. My people. Your gods. You gave birth to us. You made us what you would not dare to be yourselves. Yet you will not acknowledge us. If I walk along one of your streets in this... world you have made for yourselves without us, then barely an eye will once flicker in my direction." "Is this when you're wearing the helmet?" "Especially when I'm wearing the helmet!”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's important to remember that the relationship between different media tends to be complementary. When new media arrive they don't necessarily replace or eradicate previous types. Though we should perhaps observe a half second silence for the eight-track. — There that's done. What usually happens is that older media have to shuffle about a bit to make space for the new one and its particular advantages. Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies — what television did kill was cinema newsreel. TV does it much better because it can deliver it instantly. Who wants last week's news?”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Part of how we come to take command of our world, to take command of our environment, to make these tools by which we're able to do this, is we ask ourselves questions about it the whole time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world," he says, "so who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because he makes things himself. So he's looking for someone who would have made this world. He says, "Well, so who would have made this world? Well, it must be something a little like me. Obviously much much bigger. And necessarily invisible. But he would have made it. Now why did he make it?" Now we always ask ourselves "why?" because we look for intention around us; because we always intend– we do something with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So we look at the rocks, and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In fact the only thing that I don't like about Whisky, is that if I take the merest sip of the stuff, it sends a sharp pain from the back of my left eyeball down to the tip of my right elbow, and I begin to walk in a very special way, bumping into people and snarling at the furniture. I have therefore learned to turn my attention to other tipples. Margaritas, I'm very fond of, but they make me buy very stupid things. When ever I've had a few margaritas I always wake up in the morning with a sense of dread as to what I will find downstairs. The worst was a 6ft long pencil and a 2ft wide India rubber that I had shipped over from New York, as a result of one injudicious binge.”
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source