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Famous Douglas Adams Quotes

“The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.”

LongFactsLastsStarsMessagesFishesThanksSophisticatedBackwardsGalaxyBannerDolphinsWhistlingHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideHitchhikingMisinterpreted
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
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“In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was "nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation," or to put it another way--as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career--the check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it was.”

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Author:Douglas Adams
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“My favorite 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 favorite 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.”

DoneFactsYoungOrderFallPiecesTreeInformationBrotherArmsProveStandingDiedAbsolutesMy FavoriteLegsLimbsProve ItSlothEmilyCharlotteArms And LegsTree Limbs
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“I 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 importantly, 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.”

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Author:Douglas Adams
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“We no longer think of chairs as technology, we just think of them as chairs. But there was a time when we hadn't worked out how many legs chairs should have, how tall they should be, and they would often "crash" when we tried to use them. Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs and we will cease to be aware of the things. In fact I'm sure we will look back on this last decade and wonder how we could ever have mistaken what we were doing with them for "productivity"”

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Author:Douglas Adams
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“The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like. It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity—distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very very big, so big that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself.”

LooksIdeasFactsBigsLightNightClearSkyCarShotsInfiniteDistanceCirclesImpressionFlatsInfinityMeaninglessChamberNight SkyArthur
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

ThinkingWellsFactsHumorScienceUniverseMillionsPlanetsPerspectiveNormalBottomSurfaceNuclearMilesGasCoveredGravityIndicationMiles AwaySubtle Atheist
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit.”

IdeasFactsFitWorthyConsiderationBentMundaneImprobable
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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“The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of the word "Infinite". Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, "wow, that's big", time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.”

TryingLooksFactsBigsHugeOffersConceptsBiggerInfiniteSizeDefinitionsGuidesComparisonInfinityWowImmenseGalaxyStunningColossalHiker
Book:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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“Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially.”

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Author:Douglas Adams
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“In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship—he merely left his office late one morning, and has never returned since. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has simply popped out for a sandwich and will yet return to put in a solid afternoon's work. Strictly speaking, all editors since Lig Lury Jr., have therefore been designated acting editors, and Lig's desk is still preserved the way he left it, with the addition of a small sign that says LIG LURY, JR., EDITOR, MISSING, PRESUMED FED.”

WayWellsStillsFactsLeftActingMorningCenturyMissingReturnMembersOfficeLateNotionGuidesFedsEditorsAfternoonDesksStaffSandwichesResigned
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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“Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single fact took the scientific world by storm.”

WorldFactsLawScienceUniverseNumbersPiecesWrittenFoodPaperMathematicsBillsStormMathematicalRestaurantsHitchhikers Guide
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts Volume 2: The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases
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“In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running around inside wheels and conduction frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.”

MenFactsRunningPlansPlanetsCreaturesResearchIntelligentSpeciesExperimentsWheelsSubtleElegantLaboratoryDolphinsMisinterpreted
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
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“People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)”

PeopleIfsThinkingKindFactsTurnsLevelsBehindsCasesAtheismHairConversationWorshipCrossesFingersAtheistEdgesImpressedAgnosticThere Is No GodTheismSplittingThere Being No GodSillinessMuddleBehind Your Back
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
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“If on the other hand he went to pay his respects to The Door and it wasn't there . . . what then? The answer, of course, was very simple. He had a whole board of circuits for dealing with exactly this problem, in fact this was the very heart of his function. He would continue to believe in it whatever the facts turned out to be, what else was the meaning of Belief? The Door would still be there, even if the Door was not.”

IfsBelieveHeartStillsWholeFactsProblemHandsCoursesBeliefSimpleAnswersPayDoorsFunctionPositive AtheismBoardsCircuits
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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“Yes, I think I use the term radical rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as atheist some people will say, Don't you mean agnostic? I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one...etc., etc. It's easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal and that it's an opinion I hold seriously.”

PeopleIfsThinkingBelieveMeanFactsUseReligionTermDifferencesDealsOpinionEasierEvidenceAtheistConvincedRadicalBeing YourselfEtcSubtleAgnosticSignalsEmphasisReally MeanSubtle AtheistDescribe Yourself
Author:Douglas Adams
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