50 Famous Quotes by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams was an English author and humorist who is best known for his science fiction series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Adams' unique blend of satire and science fiction made him a beloved figure in the literary world, and his books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Beyond his writing, Adams was also an environmentalist and a passionate advocate for conservation. His wit, imagination, and commitment to making the world a better place continue to inspire readers of all ages. (Douglas Adams Biography).
Douglas Adams Famous Quotes
1. "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
2. "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
3. "It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
4. "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
5. "To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity."
6. "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space."
7. "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
8. "I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons."
9. "I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't believe it."
10. "The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair."
11. "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be."
12. "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."
13. "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
14. "He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot."
15. "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
16. "Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
17. "We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem."
18. "This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
19. "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
20. "It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
21. "I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be."
22. "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."
23. "Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner."
24. "If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves."
25. "Life is wasted on the living."
26. "Books are sharks... because sharks have been around for a very long time. There were sharks before there were dinosaurs, and the reason sharks are still in the ocean is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark."
27. "See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that."
28. "The mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind."
29. "The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
30. "My absolute favourite 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."
31. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks."
32. "You live and learn. At any rate, you live."
33. "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."
34. "I think the idea of art kills creativity."
35. "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
36. "One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no 'them' out there. It's just an awful lot of 'us.'"
37. "I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?"
38. "I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?"
39. "Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."
40. "He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
41. "He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
42. "I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather - you just have to get on with it."
43. "I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously."
44. "Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use."
45. "What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand."
46. "Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They're solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive."
47. "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."
48. "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."
49. "I have rooms full of little dongly things and don't want any more. Half the little dongly things I've got, I don't even know what gizmo they're for. More importantly, half the gizmos I've got, I don't know where their little dongly thing is."
50. "Years and years ago, I did a game based on 'Hitchhiker's Guide' with a company called Infocom, which was a great company. They were doing witty, intelligent, literate games based on text."
― Douglas Adams Quotes
* Want to explore more inspiring quotes and their meanings? Head over to this quotes page, where you can find more thought-provoking quotes and their interpretations.
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
