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Famous Douglas Adams Quotes

“My late friend Graham Chapman, an idiosyncratic driver at the best of times, used to exploit the mutual incomprehension of British and U.S. driving habits by always carrying both British and California driver’s licences. Whenever he was stopped in the States, he would flash his British licence, and vice versa. He would also mention that he was just on his way to the airport to leave the country, which he always found to be such welcome news that the police would breathe a sigh of relief and wave him on.”

DrivingGraham Chapman
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”

PerspectiveInterpretation586 587Wonko The Sane
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“All right," said Ford. "How would you react if I said that I'm not from Guildford at all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?" Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way. "I don't know," he said, taking a pull of beer. "Why, do you think it's the sort of thing you're likely to say?" Ford gave up. It really wasn't worth bothering at the moment, what with the world being about to end.”

ArthurPlanetAlienDouglas AdamsFord PrefectArthur DentPubFordWorld EndingDouglasAdamsAliens AbductDentPrefectBetelgeuse
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“The [Tiananmen] Gate was built during the Ming Dynasty and used by Emperors for making public appearances and proclamations. The Gate, like Tiananmen Square, has always been a major point of focus in the political history of China. If you climb up to the balcony, you can stand on the spot from which, on October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao proclamied the founding of the People's Republic of China. The spot is clearly marked, and there is an exhibition of photographs of the event clustered around it. The view across the immensity of Tiananmen Square here is extraordinary. It is like looking across a plain from the side of a mountain. In political terms the view is more astounding yet, encompassing as it does a nation that comprises almost one-quarter of the population of this planet. All of the history of China is symbolically focused here, at this very point, and it is hard, as you stand there, not to be transfixed by the power of it. It is hard, also, not to be profoundly moved by the vision of the peasant from Shaoshan who seized that power in the name of the people and whom the people still revere, in spite of the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution, as the father of their nation. And while we were standing on this spot, the spot where Mao stood when he proclaimed the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the music we were having played at us by the public address system was first "Viva España", and then the "Theme from Hawaii Five-O." It was hard to avoid the feeling that somebody, somewhere, was missing the point. I couldn't even be sure it wasn't me.”

ChinaMaoTiananmen SquareMissing The PointTiananmen Gate
Book:Last Chance To See
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“This is rather as if you 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, must 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, 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.”

AtheismIntelligent DesignPuddle
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe.”

IdentityExistentialDouglas AdamsMostly Harmless
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know becasue you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.”

PhilosophyDouglas AdamsMostly Harmless
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“No," said the old lady. "It's the story of my life. You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. Now, as you look through this document you'll see that I've underlined all the major decisions I ever made to make them stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take the decisions that are exactly opposite to the sort of decisions that I've taken, then maybe you won't finish up at the end of your life"-she paused, and filled her lungs for a good shout-"in a smelly old cave like this!”

Douglas AdamsMostly Harmless
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“Hay una teoría que afirma que si alguien descubriera lo que es exactamente el universo y el porqué de su existencia, desaparecería al instante y sería sustituido por algo aún más extraño e inexplicable. Hay otra teoría que afirma que eso ya ha ocurrido”

La VidaDouglas AdamsEl Restaurante Del Fin Del MundoEl Universo Y Todo Lo DemásGuia Del Autoestopista Galactico
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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“Total Perspektif Girdabı'nın bu kadar dehşet verici olmasının nedeni de işte budur. Çünkü Girdap'a girdiğinizde, bir an için tüm yaradılışın akıllara sığmayan sonsuzluğuyla karşı karşıya kalır ve bu sonsuzluğun bir yerlerinde bulunan mikroskobik bir noktanın üzerindeki mikroskobik bir noktaya konulmuş minicik işaret levhasındaki "Buradasınız?" yazısını görürsünüz.”

EvrenSonsuzlukVarlıkHiçlik
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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“Dizem em todos os níveis da indústria do entretenimento que o público americano não gosta ou não entende o humor inglês. Dizem isso em todos os níveis exceto no nível do público, que, pelo que eu vejo, adora. É a opinião dos outros, das pessoas cujo trabalho é dizer de que o público gosta... A astúcia é escrever sobre pessoas. Se você escreve sobre situações que as pessoas reconhecem, então as pessoas vão reagir a elas.”

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Author:Douglas Adams
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“I suddenly felt, well, terribly old as I watched a mudskipper hopping along with what now seemed to me like a wonderful sense of hopeless, boundless naïve optimism. I hoped that if its descendant was sitting here on this beach in 350 million years' time with a camera around its neck, it would feel that the journey had been worth it. I hoped that it might have a clearer understanding of itself in relation to the world it lived in. I hoped that it wouldn't be reduced to turning other creatures into horror circus shows in order to try and ensure them their survival. I hoped that if someone tried to feed the remote descendant of a goat to the remote descendant of a dragon for the sake of a little more than a shudder of entertainment, that it would feel it was wrong. I hoped it wouldn't be too chicken to say so.”

ScienceHumanityHopefulWildlifeWildlife ConservationWildlife Protection
Book:Last Chance To See
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“…San Francisco, which the Guide describes as a ‘good place to go. It is very easy to believe that everyone you meet there is also a space traveler. Starting a new religion for you is just their way of saying “hi.” Until you’ve settled in and got the hang of the place it’s best to say “no” to three questions out of any given four that anyone may ask you, because there are some very strange things going on there, some of which an unsuspecting alien could die of’.”

San FranciscoSan Francisco Bay
Author:Douglas Adams
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“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich. [...] "But we have also," continued the management consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying on ship's peanut." [...] "So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and...er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances.”

Fiscal Policy299
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so—but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence, the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous.”

IntelligenceStupidityHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyZaphod BeeblebroxH2g2Trillian
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the color blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to ballpoint life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended ballpoints would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely ballpointoid lifestyle, responding to highly ballpoint-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the ballpoint equivalent of the good life. And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make fools of themselves in public.”

HumorPensHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchikerBallpointBiro
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“The summer sun was sinking through the trees in the [ark, looking as if -lets not mince words. Hyde Park is stunning. Everything about it is stunning except for the rubbish on Monday mornings. Even the ducks are stunning. Anyone who can go through Hyde Park on a summer's evening and not feel moved by it is probably going through in an ambulance with the sheet pulled over his face.”

Hyde Park
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
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“You have carjacking back in old England?” “Carjacking?” “People walk up to you, steal your car.” “No, but thanks for asking. We have people who clean your windscreen against your will, but, er...” Joe barked with contempt. “The thing is,” explained Dirk, “in London you could certainly walk up to someone and steal their car, but you wouldn't be able to drive it away.” “Some kinda fancy device?” “No, just traffic,” said Dirk.”

HumorEnglandTrafficDirk GentlyCarjacking
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“Wstał, ruszył pewnym krokiem i popatrzył światu prosto w pola i wzgórza. By nadać swym słowom wagę, wetknął w brodę króliczą kość. Szeroko rozpostarł ramiona. — Wariuję! — oznajmił. — Świetny pomysł — powiedział Ford Prefect, złażąc ze skały, na której siedział. Mózg Artura zrobił salto. Jego szczęka zaczęła wykonywać pompki. — Przez pewien czas też byłem wariatem — powiedział Ford. — Szalenie dobrze mi to zrobiło.”

Douglas AdamsSzaleństwo
Book:Restauracja na końcu wszechświata. Życie, wszechświat i cała reszta
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