Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Quotes

• I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

• Life? Don't talk to me about life!

• The story so far: 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.

• It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear.

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

• This is an important announcement. This is flight 121 to Los Angeles. If your travel plans today do not include Los Angeles, now would be a perfect time to disembark.

• Cyberspace is - or can be - a good, friendly and egalitarian place to meet.

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

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

• 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.

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

• 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 or repair.

• Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

• The dew has fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning.

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

• There is a particular disdain with which Siamese cats regard you. Anyone who has walked in on the Queen cleaning her teeth will be familiar with the feeling.

• Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, thought it was pretty smart.

• 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.

• I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
  1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
  2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
  3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

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