Douglas Adams Quotes (188 Quotes)

He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

It is known that there are an infinte number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely products of a deranged imagination.

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?

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.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

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.

Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.

No, that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.

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.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.

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.

Some say that the universe is made so that when we are about to understand it, it changes into something even more incomprehensible. And then there are those who say that this has already happened.

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.

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.

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.

Without a god, life is only a matter of opinion.

Time is bunk.

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.

What's so unpleasant about being drunk You ask a glass of water

Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reason.

One of the most blissful joys of the English language is the fact that one of its greatest practitioners ever, one of the guys on the very top table of all, was a jokesmith. Though maybe it shouldn't be that big a surprise. Who else would be up there Austen, of course, Dickens and Chaucer. The only one who couldn't make a joke to save his life would be Shakespeare.

Life is wasted on the living.

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

The story goes that I first had the idea for THHGTTGalaxy while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola

One always overcompensates for disabilities. I'm thinking of having my entire body surgically removed.

Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since.

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer.