The lights were off so that his heads could avoid looking at each other because neither of them was currently a particular engaging sight, nor had they been since he had made the error of looking into his soul. It had indeed been an error. It had been late one night-- of course. It had been a difficult day-- of course. There had been soulful music playing on the ship's sound system-- of course. And he had, of course, been slightly drunk. In other words, all the usual conditions that bring on a bout of soul searching had applied, but it had, nevertheless, clearly been an error.
Douglas AdamsIf there's any real truth, it's that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.
Douglas AdamsTo Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.
Douglas AdamsSo this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die." "Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried. "What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round. "No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.
Douglas AdamsWhat 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.
Douglas AdamsBut for a moment Dirk had a sense of inifinite loss and sadness that somewhere among the frenzy of information noise that daily rattled the lives of men he thought he might have heard a few notes that denoted the movements of gods.
Douglas AdamsIt was one of those pictures that children are supposed to like but don't. Full of endearing little animals doing endearing things, you know?
Douglas AdamsThe 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.
Douglas AdamsBut the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
Douglas AdamsIn the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Douglas AdamsHumans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.
Douglas AdamsAll through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was." "No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.
Douglas AdamsLife... is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.
Douglas AdamsThere is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened.
Douglas AdamsIf you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.
Douglas AdamsOh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Douglas AdamsI don't really have any advice, other than to say it's the most appallingly difficult thing I've ever tried to do and I wish I had a better idea of how to do it. In my experience what you end up with is the by-product of your failure to achieve what you set out to do. It may turn out OK, but it wasn't what you meant and you've no idea how you got there.
Douglas AdamsIn those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Douglas AdamsThe Answer to the Great Question... Of Life, the Universe and Everything... Is... Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
Douglas AdamsWe all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.
Douglas AdamsGhastly," continued Marvin, "it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door," he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure. " 'All the doors in his spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.' " As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sighlike quality to it. "Hummmmmmmyummmmmmmah!" it said.
Douglas AdamsI'm up to here with cool, okay? I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis.
Douglas AdamsZaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.
Douglas AdamsWhen you're cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily sail past a few hard-driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with yourself and then accidently change down from fourth to first instead of third thus making your engine leap out of your hood in a rather ugly mess, it tends to throw you off stride in much the same way that this remark threw Ford Prefect off his.
Douglas AdamsDavid Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have been there longer than we were, and seen different bits, because most of what we saw in the couple of days we were there sorting out our travel arrangements was awful. It was just the tourist area, i.e. that part of Bali which has been made almost exactly the same as everywhere else in the world for the sake of people who have come all this way to see Bali.
Douglas AdamsA hole had just appeared in the Galaxy. It was exactly a nothingth of a second long, a nothingth of an inch wide, and quite a lot of million light years from end to end. As it closed up [...] Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it...materializing in a large woobly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.
Douglas AdamsI've never understood all this fuss people make about the dawn. I've seen a few and they're never as good as the photographs, which have the additional advantage of being things you can look at when you're in the right frame of mind, which is usually around lunchtime.
Douglas AdamsDouglas Adams did not enjoy writing, and he enjoyed it less as time went on. He was a bestselling, acclaimed, and much-loved novelist who had not set out to be a novelist, and who took little joy in the process of crafting novels. He loved talking to audiences. He liked writing screenplays. He liked being at the cutting edge of technology and inventing
Douglas AdamsIn cases of major discrepancy its always reality thats got it wrong ... reality is frequently inaccurate.
Douglas AdamsFord carried on counting quietly. This is about the most aggressive thing you can do to a computer, the equivalent of going up to a human being and saying "Blood...blood...blood...blood...
Douglas AdamsDon't you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.
Douglas AdamsThe light works," he said, indicating the window, "the gravity works," he said, dropping a pencil on the floor. "Anything else we have to take our chances with.
Douglas AdamsTime, 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.
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