Douglas Adams's quote

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English writer, humorist and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.

Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), Last Chance to See (1990), and three stories for the television series Doctor Who. A posthumous collection of his work, including an unfinished novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.

Adams became known as an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and also as a lover of fast cars, cameras, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh. He was a staunch atheist, famously imagining a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "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, must have been made to have me in it!" to demonstrate the fallacy of the fine-tuned Universe argument for God. Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book The God Delusion (2006) to Adams, writing on his death that "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."

더글러스 애덤스 (ko)

So long and thanks...for all the fish!

The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. The Salmon of Doubt

For 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. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. The Salmon of Doubt

I'd far rather be happy than right any day. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young." "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that. The Salmon of Doubt

Don't Panic. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The major problem—<em>one</em> of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must <em>want</em> to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

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

You live and learn. At any rate, you live. Mostly Harmless

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It is known that there are an infinite 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. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to 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 the products of a deranged imagination. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. Life, the Universe, and Everything

Reality is frequently inaccurate. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

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. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

The Answer to the Great Question... Of Life, the Universe and Everything... Is... Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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

All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.

Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.

First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. The Salmon of Doubt

Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.

We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win. Life, the Universe and Everything

Don'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. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

God’s Final Message to His Creation: 'We apologize for the inconvenience. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Capital Letters Were Always The Best Way Of Dealing With Things You Didn't Have A Good Answer To.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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.

Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button? Ford Prefect: I wouldn't- Arthur Dent: Oh. Ford Prefect: What happened? Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again. The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts

Life is wasted on the living. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

42 is a nice number that you can take home and introduce to your family.

It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

In 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. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

All 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. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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. Last Chance to See

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

For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while. The Salmon of Doubt

Life, said Marvin dolefully, loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

"Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means." The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide

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. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

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. The Salmon of Doubt

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

Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does. The Hitchhiker's Trilogy

To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe