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Famous Douglas Adams Quotes

“My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it's going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere I needed to be.”

IfsKnowsLooksEndsMy OwnCarNeededStrategy
Book:Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
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“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

ThinkingLittlesStillsTwoIdeasEndsFormScienceLyingWatchesMillionsSunPlanetsArmsBlueGreenDistanceWesternMilesDigitalYellowPrimitiveGalaxyInsignificantNinetyApesNeatCosmologySpiralsUnchartedHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideHikerBlue PlanetYellow Sun
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts
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“If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don't. It's like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it. Not even major surgery if it's done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.”

PeopleIfsFirstsHumansEndsDoneBodyRememberUniverseCoursesHurtSpaceCuttingHappenedEventsMajorsHealVersionsUncertaintyParadoxScarSurgeryTime And SpaceHuman BodyHere And ThereTissuesBruisesScar TissueCuts And Bruises
Book:Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
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“In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.”

KnowsLongSoulEndsHardUseHandsMovingGivenDarkFourTerriblePaperTechniqueClockStaringRevolutionarySundayAfternoonPapersBathsParagraphPruningSunday Afternoons
Author:Douglas Adams
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“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 the stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take 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 should--"in a smelly old cave like this!”

IfsShouldLooksMadeI CanEndsStoriesDecisionQualityTakenAdviceOffersMajorsCrossesOppositesFilledJudgedDocumentsStanding OutCavesLungsQuality Of LifeStory Of My LifeSmellyLife Decision
Author:Douglas Adams
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“If you took a couple of David Bowies and stuck one of the David Bowies on the top of the other David Bowie, then attached another David Bowie to the end of each of the arms of the upper of the first two David Bowies and wrapped the whole business up in a dirty beach robe you would then have something which didn't exactly look like John Watson, but which those who knew him would find hauntingly familiar.”

IfsFirstsLooksTwoEndsWholeArmsCoupleStuckFamiliarBeachDirtyRobesWatsonBowieJohn Watson
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
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“Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do." The sign read: "Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion." "It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”

NeedsSaidEndsUseNextLostSpaceSawsCivilizationMouthsSticksTeethGentleLengthInstructionSanePackagesBluntGumHermitsInsertToothpicks
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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“A hole had just appeared in the Galaxy. It was exactly a nothingth of a second long, a nothingth of an inch wide, and quite a lot of million light years from end to end. As it closed up [...] Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it...materializing in a large woobly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.”

MenYearsLongTwoEndsWholeLightLastsMillionsWeekLandThousandHundredDiedStupidityWideNineHolesThirtyEggsInchesTribesGalaxyFaminePoisoningCholesterolLight Years
Author:Douglas Adams
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“The moment at which two people, approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognize each other and immediately pretend they haven t. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognizing each other the whole length of the corridor.”

PeopleLongTwoEndsWholeMomentsHavensOppositesLengthRecognizingEmbarrassmentCorridorsGhastly
Book:The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be
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