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Douglas Adams Quotes - Page 16

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The usual people tried to claim responsibility. First the IRA , then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was completely under control, that it

The usual people tried to claim responsibility. First the IRA , then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was completely under control, that it was a one in a million chance, that there was hardly any radioactive leakage at all, and that the site of the explosion would make a nice location for a day out with the kids and a picnic, before finally having to admit that it wasn't actually anything to do with them at all.

Nice, Kids, Responsibility

Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way, like an aunt who disapproves of the last fifteen years of your life and will therefore furnish you with a basic sherry, but refuses to catch your eye.

Eye, Aunt, Years

Douglas Adams (2014). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency”, p.70, Simon and Schuster

Nobody got murdered before lunch. But nobody. People weren't up to it. You needed a good lunch to get both the blood-sugar and blood-lust levels up.

Blood, Lunch, People

Douglas Adams (2014). “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.29, Simon and Schuster

And the most interesting natural structure? A giant, two-thousand-mile-long fish in orbit around Jupiter, according to a reliable report in the Weekly World News. The photograph was very convincing, and I'm only surprised that more-reputable journals like New Scientist, or even just The Sun, haven't followed up with more details. We should be told.

Two, Long, Interesting

Douglas Adams (2005). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.62, Del Rey

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.

Night, Careers, Transition

"The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul". Book by Douglas Adams, 1988.

I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

Art, Thinking, Suspicious

Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry (2012). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.127, Pan Macmillan

I think media are at their most interesting before anybody's thought of calling them art, when people still think they're just a load of junk.

Art, Thinking, Media

Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry (2012). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.126, Pan Macmillan

The switch had two settings. You could either turn it to AUTO, in which case the awning lowered itself whenever the sun came out, or you could set it to MANUEL [sic], in which case, we assumed, a small, incompetent Spanish waiter came and did it for you.

Sea, Two, Sun

"The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time".

The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing devision of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Wall, Fun, Men

Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.95, Del Rey

Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

Want, Enough, Should

Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.250, Pan Macmillan

Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion is the better part of valor, so was cowardice is the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a closet.

Want, Cowardice, Closets

Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.543, Del Rey

The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened ' it's just wonderful. And . . . the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned.

Mean, Opportunity, Years

Richard Dawkins' Eulogy for Douglas Adams at Church of Saint Martin in the Fields, www.edge.org. September 17, 2001.

Being virtually killed by a virtual laser in a virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are.

Real, Thinking, Space

Douglas Adams (2009). “Mostly Harmless”, p.59, Pan Macmillan

In the center lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot.

Lonely, Whales, Long

Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.134, Del Rey

These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings.

Dimensions, Mice, Creatures

Douglas Adams (2010). “The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.152, Del Rey

I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe

Universe

"Fictional character: Arthur Dent". "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/ Frequently Asked Questions", www.imdb.com. 2005.

Plenty of people did not care for him much, but then there is a huge difference between disliking somebody - maybe even disliking them a lot - and actually shooting them, strangling them, dragging them through the fields and setting their house on fire.

Differences, Fire, People

Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.130, Simon and Schuster

And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?

Names, Needs, Hey

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.

People, Sake, Facts

Douglas Adams (2009). “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, p.49, Pan Macmillan

Moving from radio to television, you can take most of the words with you.

Moving, Television, Radio

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.

Hurt, Cutting, Space

Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.215, Simon and Schuster

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 broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with.

Mother, Father, Becoming

Douglas Adams (2017). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts”, p.199, Pan Macmillan

One of the problems, and it's one which is obviously going to get worse, is that all the people at the party are either the children or the grandchildren or the great-grandchildren of the people who wouldn't leave in the first place, and because of all the business about selective breeding and regressive genes and so on, it means that all the people now at the party are either absolutely fanatical partygoers, or gibbering idiots, or, more and more frequently, both.

Children, Party, Mean

Douglas Adams (2017). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts”, p.378, Pan Macmillan

Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police---who already think you're guilty---will find it for you.

Believe, Thinking, Cells

Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.132, Simon and Schuster

Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through.

Matter, Way, Serious

Douglas Adams (2013). “Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.187, Simon and Schuster

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