Quotessence
Home / Authors / Douglas Adams Books
Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Books

Writer

Mostly Harmless

A source page for quotes linked to Douglas Adams.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned, Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see in infrared, How I hate the night. He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.”

HumorSci FiMarvinHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyH2g2Counting Sheep
Book:Life, the Universe and Everything
Create image

“It says in the brochure," said Arthur, pulling it out of his pocket and looking at it again, "that I can have a special prayer, individually tailored to me and my special needs." - "Oh, all right," said the old man. "Here's a prayer for you. Got a pencil?" - "Yes," said Arthur. - "It goes like this. Let's see now: "Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen." That's it. It's what you pray silently inside yourself anyway, so you may as well have it out in the open." - "Hmmm," said Arthur. "Well, thank you" - "There's another prayer that goes with it that's very Important," continued the old man, "so you'd better jot this down, too, just in case. You can never be too sure. "Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen." And that's it. Most of the trouble people get into in life comes from missing out that last part.”

HonestySincere Prayer
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”

GodCreationLogicManRationalismH2g2Hitchhiker S Guide
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Create image

“Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like, guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha". It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.' 'Why not?' 'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.”

GodReligion
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Create image

“I certainly don’t like the idea of missionaries. In fact, the whole business fills me with fear and alarm. I don’t believe in God, or at least not in the one we’ve invented for ourselves in England to fulfill our peculiarly English needs, and certainly not in the ones they’ve invented in America, who supply their servants with toupees, television stations, and, most important, toll-free telephone numbers. I wish that people who did believe in such things would keep them to themselves and not export them to the developing world.”

GodReligionSocietySarcasmWestern Civilization
Book:Last Chance To See
Create image

“Q: Do you feel concerned that after all this work, people won't treat [Starship Titanic] with the gravity of, say, a movie or a book? That they won't treat it as an art form? D.A.: I hope that's the case, yes. I get very worried about this idea of art. Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity. ... [I]f somebody wants to come along and say, "Oh, it's art," that's as may be. I don't really mind that much. But I think that's for other people to decide after the fact. It isn't what you should be aiming to do. There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth." ... I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don't think they're doing art, but merely practicing a craft, and working as good craftsmen. ... I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.”

Art
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is no problem about changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.”

DestinyFateTime Travel
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Create image

“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong. This was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate." This has led to some interesting consequences. For instance, when the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Tralal literally (it said "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists: instead of "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists"), they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.”

LifeBeautyHitchhiker S Guide173 174
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Create image

“A história de todas as grandes civilizações galácticas tende a passar por três fases distintas e identificáveis: a da Sobrevivência, a da Interrogação e a da Sofisticação, também conhecidas pelas fases Como, Porquê e Onde. Por exemplo, a primeira fase é caracterizada pela pergunta "Como vamos comer?", a segunda pela pergunta "Por que comemos?" e a terceira pela pergunta "Onde vamos almoçar?".”

NovelComedyPlanetsScience FictionSatireSci FiDouglas Adams1979Hitchicker S Guide
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Create image

“A single tune danced through his mind and all his attention rested upon it. It was a tune that seethed through the magical flood, shaped it, formed it, lived through it hugely, lived through it minutely, was its very essence. It bounced and trilled along, at first a little tripping tune, then it slowed, then it danced again but with more difficulty, seemed to founder in eddies of doubt and confusion, and then suddenly revealed that the eddies were just the first ripples of a huge new wave of energy surging up joyfully from underneath.”

MusicTuneDouglas AdamsDirk Gently
Book:Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Create image

“Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them. They were the pre-ordained promptings from the dark and locked off parts of his mind. He sat still and ignored the thought furiously. It nagged at him. He ignored it. It nagged at him. He ignored it. It nagged at him. He gave in to it. What the hell, he thought, go with the flow. He was too tired, confused and hungry to resist. He didn't even know what the thought meant.”

ThinkingHumorBrainThoughtsSci Fi
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Create image

“The history of every major galactic civilisation tends to pass through three distinct and recognisable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question How can we eat?, the second by the question Why do we eat?, and the third but the question Where shall we have lunch?”

LifePhilosophyUniverseMeaning Of LifeHitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”

HappinessMoney
Book:The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Create image

“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.”

Humour
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Create image