110+ Douglas Adams Thought-Provoking Quotes on Life and the Universe

Douglas Adams was an English author, essayist, humorist, and dramatist. He was best known for his science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, as well as other works. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Douglas Adams on love, death, writing.

Top 10 Douglas Adams Quotes

1. The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood.
2. To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.
3. Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
4. Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
5. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
6. 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.
7. You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
8. If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
9. One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious.
10. It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.

Douglas Adams Image Quotes

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. — Douglas Adams

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

You live and learn. At any rate, you live. — Douglas Adams

Driving a Porsche in London is like bringing a Ming vase to a football game. — Douglas Adams

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Short Quotes

• I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
• So long, and thanks for all the fish.
• Driving a Porsche in London is like bringing a Ming vase to a football game.
• How many roads must a man walk down?
• Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.
• I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
• I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer
• Democracy is all about not electing the wrong man-eating lizard.
• You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass.
• For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.

Douglas Adams Quotes About Love

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. — Douglas Adams

There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again. — Douglas Adams

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. — Douglas Adams

As a child, I was an active Christian. I used to love the school choir and remember the carol service as always such an emotional thing. — Douglas Adams

What was the self-sacrifice?" I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." Why was that self-sacrifice?" Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. I think we have different value systems." Well mine's better. — Douglas Adams

I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I’ve thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Writing

When the idea comes, I often can't remember where it came from. I remember very little about writing the first series of Hitchhiker's. It's almost as if someone else wrote it. — Douglas Adams

Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is. — Douglas Adams

I remember very little about writing the first series of 'Hitchhiker's.' It's almost as if someone else wrote it. — Douglas Adams

The books people are writing today, they're too long. You get a little bit of plot, and then pages and pages of Creative Writing. They teach classes in how to do this. They should teach classes in how to stop! — Douglas Adams

The more I think about our species the more I think we just do stuff and make up explanations later when asked. But it's not true that I would rather write than read. I would rather read than write. To be honest I would rather hang upside down in a bucket than write. — Douglas Adams

I find that writing is a constant battle with exactly the same problems you've always had. — Douglas Adams

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty. — Douglas Adams

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, 'Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth.' — Douglas Adams

After ten years of word processing, I can't even do hand writing anymore. — Douglas Adams

It takes an awful lot of time to not write a book. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Life

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

A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that. — Douglas Adams

Life is wasted on the living. — Douglas Adams

Life... 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 Adams

Life! Don't talk to me about life! — Douglas Adams

The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. — Douglas Adams

I'd far rather be happy than right any day. — Douglas Adams

Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy. — Douglas Adams

A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. — Douglas Adams

and we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere … and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Technology

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. — Douglas Adams

A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about. — Douglas Adams

Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet. — Douglas Adams

Most of the time spent wrestling with technologies that don't quite work yet is just not worth the effort for end users, however much fun it is for nerds like us. — Douglas Adams

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second- rate technology, led them into it in the first place. — Douglas Adams

We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual. — Douglas Adams

Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work properly yet — Douglas Adams

In the old days, writers used to sit in front of a typewriter and stare out of the window. Nowadays, because of the marvels of convergent technology, the thing you type on and the window you stare out of are now the same thing. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Time

It was his subconscious which told him this - that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing. — Douglas Adams

Arthur shook his head and sat down. He looked up. “I thought you must be dead …” he said simply. “So did I for a while,” said Ford, “and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic. — Douglas Adams

There are some people you like immediately, some whom you think you might learn to like in the fullness of time, and some that you simply want to push away from you with a sharp stick. — Douglas Adams

The difference between us and a computer is that, the computer is blindingly stupid, but it is capable of being stupid many, many million times a second. — Douglas Adams

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. — Douglas Adams

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now? — Douglas Adams

Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches? — Douglas Adams

Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat when its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila. — Douglas Adams

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

I have detected disturbances in the wash.' 'The wash?' 'The space-time wash.' 'Are we talking about some sort of Vogon laundromat, or what are we talking about?' 'Eddies in the space-time continuum.' 'Ah...is he. Is he.' 'What?' 'Er, who is Eddy, then, exactly? — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Presidents

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

Presidents don't have power. Their job is to draw attention away from it. — Douglas Adams

The Presidents job, is not to wield power himself, but to lead attention away from it. — Douglas Adams

He didn't know why he had become president of the galaxy, except that it seemed a fun thing to be. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Humorous

Alone of all the races on earth, they seem to be free from the 'Grass is Greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome, and roundly proclaim that Australia is, in fact, the other side of that fence. — Douglas Adams

It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion on them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever. — Douglas Adams

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes. — Douglas Adams

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged. — Douglas Adams

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty! — Douglas Adams

To boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. — Douglas Adams

There 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 Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About People

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now. — Douglas Adams

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. — Douglas Adams

Nobody got murdered before lunch. But nobody. People weren't up to it. You needed a good lunch to get both the blood-sugar and blood-lust levels up. — Douglas Adams

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

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

The moment at which two people, approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognize each other and immediately pretend they haven t. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognizing each other the whole length of the corridor. — Douglas Adams

When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch. — Douglas Adams

To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. — Douglas Adams

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. — Douglas Adams

Could be. I’m a pretty dangerous dude when I’m cornered.” “Yeah,” said the voice from under the table, “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Fact

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, " This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in; fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well! It must have been made to have me in it! — Douglas Adams

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single fact took the scientific world by storm. — Douglas Adams

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 Adams

The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit. — Douglas Adams

Wandering around the web is like living in a world in which every doorway is actually one of those science fiction devices which deposit you in a completely different part of the world when you walk through them. In fact, it isn't like it, it is it. — Douglas Adams

I wanted to be a writer-performer like the Pythons. In fact, I wanted to be John Cleese, and it took me some time to realise that the job was, in fact, taken. — Douglas Adams

The 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 Adams

Douglas Adams Quotes About Science

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. — Douglas Adams

What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day. — Douglas Adams

Earthmen are not proud of their ancestors and never invite them round to dinner. — Douglas Adams

It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass. — Douglas Adams

Their minds sang with the ecstatic knowledge that either what they were doing was completely and utterly and totally impossible or that physics had a lot of catching up to do. — Douglas Adams

Ever since Newton, we've done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we're now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication. — Douglas Adams

Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this -- partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties. — Douglas Adams

I tend not to read or watch Science Fiction, particularly not comedy Science Fiction. The point is that if it's less good than what I do, there's no point in reading it, if it's better than what I do it makes me depressed — Douglas Adams

If I want to read something that's really giving me something serious and fundamental to think about, about the human condition, if you like, or what we're all doing here, or what's going on, then I'd rather read something by a scientist in the life sciences, like Richard Dawkins, for instance. — Douglas Adams

You can't possibly be a scientist if you mind people thinking that you're a fool. — Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams Famous Quotes And Sayings

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. — Douglas Adams

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

You live and learn. At any rate, you live. — Douglas Adams

You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' 'Yeah,' said Zaphod, 'but don't shout it out or they'll all want one.' 'THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' 'No, just A Zaphod Beeblebrox, didn't you hear I come in six packs?' 'But sir,' it squealed, 'I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead...' 'Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet. — Douglas Adams

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. — Douglas Adams

"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing." "Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says God, who promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

If 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 Adams

When you walk through the storm, hold your head high And don't be afraid of the dark! At the end of the storm is a golden sky And the sweet song of the lark. Walk on through the wind Walk on through the rain Though your dreams be tossed & blown Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart And you'll never walk alone! — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

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? — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you. — Douglas Adams

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation. — Douglas Adams

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. — Douglas Adams

I'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 Adams

God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. — Douglas Adams

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others. — Douglas Adams

We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying. — Douglas Adams

Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal. — Douglas Adams

Humans 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 Adams

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

Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infrared, How I hate the night. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night. -Marvin — Douglas Adams

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. — Douglas Adams

Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it. — Douglas Adams

Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin. "And what happened?" pressed Ford. "It committed suicide," said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold. — Douglas Adams

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. — Douglas Adams

The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion. — Douglas Adams

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of. — Douglas Adams

It 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 Adams

2,000 years ago one man got nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if everyone was nice to each other for a change. — Douglas Adams

Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terrible bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch. — Douglas Adams

God's Final Message to His Creation: 'We apologize for the inconvenience. — Douglas Adams

So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed. The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths. Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy. — Douglas Adams

Marvin trudged on down the corridor, still moaning. "...and then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side..." "No?" said Arthur grimly as he walked along beside him. "Really?" "Oh yes," said Marvin, "I mean I've asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens." "I can imagine. — Douglas Adams

It's part of the shape of the Universe. I only have to talk to somebody and they begin to hate me. — Douglas Adams

Goosnargh," said Ford Prefect, which was a special Betelgeusian word he used when he knew he should say something but didn't know what it should be. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

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

Will you stop counting!' snarled Zaphod. 'Yes,' said Ford Prefect, 'in three minutes and thirty-five seconds. — Douglas Adams

Six pints of bitter, said Ford Prefect. And quickly please, the world's about to end. — Douglas Adams

Even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody. — Douglas Adams

Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off. — Douglas Adams

It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training. — Douglas Adams

Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. — Douglas Adams

If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action. — Douglas Adams

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

You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist! — Douglas Adams

My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay. — Douglas Adams

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks. — Douglas Adams

I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: "Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end". — Douglas Adams

A cup of tea would restore my normality. — Douglas Adams

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

We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win. — Douglas Adams

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. — Douglas Adams

There was one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole. — Douglas Adams

Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. — Douglas Adams

Life Lessons by Douglas Adams

1. Douglas Adams taught us to embrace the absurd and to find joy in the little things in life. He also showed us that it is important to take time to appreciate the beauty of the world around us and to be open to new ideas and experiences. Finally, he taught us to never take ourselves too seriously and to always strive to find humour in life's most difficult moments.