Douglas N Adams - Collected Quotes

"It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from." (Douglas N Adams, "The Original Hitchhiker Radio Script, Fit the Fifth" , 1978)

"The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination." (Douglas N Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", 1979)

"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 N Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", 1980)

"The whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent." (Douglas N Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", 1980) 

"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 N Adams, "Life, the Universe and Everything", 1982)

The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis." (Douglas N Adams, "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", 1987) 

"Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through." (Douglas N Adams, "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul", 1988)

"The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don’t even know you’re making." Douglas N Adams, "Last Chance to See", 1990)

"The system of life on this planet is so astoundingly complex that it was a long time before man even realized that it was a system at all and that it wasn't something that was just there." (Douglas N Adams, "Last Chance to See", 1990)

"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 N Adams, "Mostly Harmless", 1992)

"Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order though." (Douglas N Adams, "Mostly Harmless", 1992)

"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 N Adams, "Mostly Harmless", 1992)

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." (Douglas N Adams, "The Salmon of Doubt", 2002)

"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works." (Douglas N Adams, "The Salmon of Doubt", 2002)

"Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe there is a reason." (Douglas N Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts" Vol. 2, 2012)

"The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful." (Douglas N Adams)