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.
Douglas AdamsIt's part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me.
Douglas AdamsNo. No games. He wanted her and didn't care who knew it. He definitely and absolutely wanted her, longed for her, wanted to do more things than there were names for with her.
Douglas AdamsFiordland, a vast tract of mountainous terrain that occupies the south-west corner of South Island, New Zealand, is one of the most astounding pieces of land anywhere on God's earth, and one's first impulse, standing on a cliff top surveying it all, is simply to burst into spontaneous applause.
Douglas AdamsWell the hours are good...' ... 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.
Douglas AdamsThe light was only just visible - except of course that there was no one to see, no witnesses, not this time, but it was nevertheless a light.
Douglas AdamsIt's the story of my life. You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. Now, as you look through this document you'll see that I've underlined all the major decisions I ever made to make the stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take decisions that are exactly opposite to the sort of decisions that I've taken, then maybe you won't finish up at the end of your life" --she paused, and filled her lungs for a good should--"in a smelly old cave like this!
Douglas AdamsThe first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.
Douglas Adams'These things will become clear to you,' said the old man gently, 'at least,' he added with slight doubt in his voice, 'clearer than they are at the moment.'
Douglas AdamsIt's guff. It doesn't advance the action. It makes for nice fat books such as the American market thrives on, but it doesn't actually get you anywhere.
Douglas AdamsSee first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.
Douglas AdamsDon't spin your wheels and stress. Take a deep breath, center yourself and make a plan.
Douglas AdamsIf you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.
Douglas AdamsHe was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
Douglas AdamsThe mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.
Douglas AdamsFor a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and satisfied, drove on into the night.
Douglas AdamsLife... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.
Douglas AdamsIt seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.
Douglas AdamsImagine" he said, "never even thinking, 'We are alone,' simply because it has never occurred to you to think that there's any other way to be.
Douglas AdamsThere is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.
Douglas AdamsWhen the girl sitting at the next table looked away from a moment, Dirk leaned over and took her coffee. He knew that he was perfectly safe doing this because she would simply not be able to believe that this had happened.
Douglas AdamsThe 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.
Douglas AdamsAnything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
Douglas AdamsThe quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.
Douglas AdamsI teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg Ron stole Meggy's heart away and I got Sidney's leg.
Douglas AdamsI'm 48, which is a bit of a shock to me. Why only last year I thought I was a precocious young thing!
Douglas AdamsNothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Douglas AdamsUnfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they'd have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City.
Douglas AdamsArthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.
Douglas AdamsIn 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.
Douglas AdamsYes, it is true that sometimes unusually intelligent and sensitive children can appear to be stupid. But stupid children can sometimes appear to be stupid as well. I think that's something you might have to consider.
Douglas AdamsHow do I know the past is not a fiction conceived to reconcile the difference between my state of mind and the present.
Douglas AdamsThe story goes that I first had the idea for The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck.
Douglas AdamsWhat is the point? We assume that every time we do anything we know what the consequences will be, i.e., more or less what we intend them to be. This is not only not always correct. It is wildly, crazily, stupidly, cross-eyed-blithering-insectly wrong!
Douglas AdamsHe felt a spasm of excitement because he knew instinctively who it was, or at least knew who it was he wanted it to be, and once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.
Douglas AdamsCapital Letters Were Always The Best Way Of Dealing With Things You Didn't Have A Good Answer To.
Douglas AdamsI really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course--the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end.
Douglas AdamsFor instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst 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 reasons.
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