Douglas Adams Quotes

One is never alone with a rubber duck.

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

"Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like, guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha". It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.'
'Why not?'
'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end."

We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books.

He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts.

Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's definition of "Universe":

The Universe is a very big thing that contains a great number of planets and a great number of beings. It is Everything. What we live in. All around us. The lot. Not nothing. It is quite difficult to actually define what the Universe means, but fortunately the Guide doesn't worry about that and just gives us some useful information to live in it.

Area: The area of the Universe is infinite.

Imports: None. This is a by product of infinity; it is impossible to import things into something that has infinite volume because by definition there is no outside to import things from.

Exports: None, for similar reasons as imports.

Population: None. Although you might see people from time to time, they are most likely products of your imagination. Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why? Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is zero, therefore the average population of the Universe is zero, and so the total population must be zero.

Art: None. Because the function of art is to hold a mirror up to nature there can be no art because the Universe is infinite which means there simply isn't a mirror big enough.

Sex: None. Although in fact there is quite a lot, given the zero population of the Universe there can in fact be no beings to have sex, and therefore no sex happens in the Universe."

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.

"I like the cover," he said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day."

"Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."
(Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.

"Ford 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...

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

"What's up?" [asked Ford.]
"I don't know," said Marvin, "I've never been there."