Quotessence
Home / Authors / Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideIfsSaidPeopleHumorKnowsThinkingUniverseGalaxyHitchhikingMenFirstsWayFactsDouglas AdamsWellsArthurWorldEnds

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
Create image

“The reason why so many sects hang around airports looking for converts: they know that people there are at their most vulnerable and perplexed, and ready to accept any kind of guidance.”

PeopleKnowsKindReasonAcceptingAtheismReadyPositive AtheismVulnerableReason WhyGuidanceAirportsSectsPerplexed
Book:Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Create image

“Why?' is always the most difficult question to answer. You know where you are when someone asks you 'What's the time?' or 'When was the battle of 1066?' or 'How do these seatbelts work that go tight when you slam the brakes on, Daddy?' The answers are easy and are, respectively, 'Seven-thirty in the evening,' 'Ten-fifteen in the morning,' and 'Don't ask stupid questions.”

KnowsAsksEasyDifficultAnswersMorningStupidBattleTenSevenEveningThirtyWhere You AreFifteenDaddySlamBrakeStupid QuestionsDifficult Questions
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him.”

KnowsWantedWaterSkyRainCloudsMiserableHolidayCherishSuccession
Book:So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Create image

“The available worlds looked pretty grim. They had little to offer him because he had little to offer them. He had been extremely chastened to realize that although he originally came from a world which had cars and computers and ballet and Armagnac, he didn't, by himself, know how any of it worked. He couldn't do it. Left to his own devices he couldn't build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.”

KnowsWorldLittlesLeftRealizingKnow HowCarOffersComputerAvailableDevicesBalletSandwichesGrimToasters
Book:Mostly Harmless
Create image

“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.”

PeopleIfsKnowsMindEnoughUniverseBowlsGalaxyHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideHitchhikingPetunias
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Create image

“You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because 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." "Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.”

KnowsWritingKindSaidWould BePocketsPencilsArthur
Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Five Novels in One Outrageous Volume
Create image

“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
Create image

“Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats.”

KnowsHumansLittlesEnoughFormLeftLinesGenerationsDirectMalesLocalsFatsCharacteristicsHatsFortyGenesCarbonCouncilApesFurAncestryMixingDescendantsShabbyIntervening
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“I begged her, 'Please don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'" "What did she say?" "She hit me on the head with the rock again," Ford responded curtly. "I think i can confirm that was my daughter." "Sweet kid." "You have to get to know her," said Arthur. "She eases up, does she?" "No, but you get a better sense of when to duck.”

ThinkingKnowsDoeSaidI CanHelpingKidsTroubleMiddleRocksSeriousSweetPleaseDaughterMedicalForestsEaseInjuryMy DaughterDucksPrimitiveLeaving MeArthurStrandedDon't Leave MeHead InjuriesMedical Help
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“Just supposing," he said, "just supposing" --he didn't know what was coming next, so he thought he'd just sit back and listen--"that there was some extraordinary way in which you were very important to me, and that, though you didn't know it, I was very important to you, but it all went for nothing because we only had five miles and I was a stupid idiot at knowing how to say something very important to someone I've only just met and not crash into lorries a the same time, what would you say..." He paused, helplessly, and looked at her. "I should do.”

KnowsWayShouldSaidImportantNextKnowingFiveStupidMetsExtraordinaryMilesIdiotCrashSupposingLorry
Book:So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Create image

“I watched the gorilla's eyes again, wise and knowing eyes, and wondered about this business of trying to teach apes language. Our language. Why? There are many members of our own species who live in and with the forest and know it and understand it. We don't listen to them. What is there to suggest we would listen to anything an ape could tell us? Or that it would be able to tell us of its life in a language that hasn't been born of that life? I thought, maybe it is not that they have yet to gain a language, it is that we have lost one.”

KnowsTryingWould BeEyeAbleLostLanguageBornTeachKnowingWiseMembersGainsSpeciesForestsApesGorillasLost Ones
Book:Last Chance To See
Create image

“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now... What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”

IfsKnowsYearsMeanHas BeensLightEarthOrderHeavenInterestActingFourMankindLateSorryAffairSakePlanningLocalsPlentyDepartmentToo LateDisplayFormalComplaintsI'm SorryNo PointBotheredBeamAlphasLodgesLight YearsDemolition
Author:Douglas Adams
Create image

“No one really knows what mattresses are meant to gain from their lives either. They are large, friendly, pocket-sprung creatures that live quiet private lives in the marshes of Sqornshellous Zeta. Many of them get caught, slaughtered, dried out, shipped out and slept on. None of them seems to mind this and all of them are called Zem.”

KnowsMindSeemsQuietCreaturesGainsCaughtPocketsFriendlyPrivate LifeSprungMarshesMattressesZeta
Book:Life, the Universe and Everything
Create image

“... The truth of the matter is, that most English people don't know how to make tea anymore either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants.”

PeopleKnowsGivingMatterKnow HowDrinkHotCoffeeImpressionPityTeaInstantCluelessStimulantsInstant Coffee
Book:The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
Create image

“After a while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn't know whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react.”

KnowsRealWeekPaperMarkTablesVariousNoisePencilsDelighted
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
Create image

“Time, we know, is relative. You can travel light years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how far you traveled. This will come to you as a profound shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister.”

IfsKnowsYearsMayLightTimeStarsBrotherReturnTwentiesMereProfoundSpeedThirtyShockFortySecondsRelativeTwinsTraveledSisterSpeed Of LightLight YearsTwin BrotherTravel Light
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
Create image

“Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

KnowsMenStillsWinningStruggleTerribleLengthRoughOddsGalaxyBreadthTowelsSlumsHitchhikers Guide To The GalaxyHitchhikers GuideHitchhiking
Book:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
Create image