4e2eb28
|
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
|
|
navigation
|
douglas adams |
aeaef27
|
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
|
|
humour
writing
work
humor
|
Douglas Adams |
63de62d
|
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.
|
|
scifi
|
Douglas Adams |
c9d91c1
|
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.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
f1512b3
|
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.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
eef277b
|
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.
|
|
science
perspective
|
Douglas Adams |
a99ce37
|
The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
|
|
humor
hg2g
flying
|
Douglas Adams |
2448ca0
|
Don't Panic.
|
|
humor
hitchhiker-s-guide
panic
|
Douglas Adams |
e84e1df
|
A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
70ab6c3
|
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
|
|
philosophy
science-fiction
|
Douglas Adams |
6ae488f
|
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.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
6e09525
|
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
|
|
foolproof
ingenuity
|
Douglas Adams |
98c4b32
|
Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?
|
|
humor
towel
thumb
social-commentary
science-fiction
|
Douglas Adams |
68bb9b2
|
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?
|
|
religion
skeptic
|
Douglas Adams |
5bf6c7f
|
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
963ab76
|
The major problem-- 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 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..
|
|
politics
hg2g
rulers
|
Douglas Adams |
0ee3734
|
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
|
|
novelist
science-fiction
|
Douglas Adams |
062461a
|
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 |
e167e53
|
I'd far rather be happy than right any day.
|
|
rightness
|
Douglas Adams |
d4965fd
|
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
|
|
science
|
Douglas Adams |
cd49efd
|
If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
|
|
zaphod-beeblebrox
|
Douglas Adams |
bc6a3ae
|
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."
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
dd875c1
|
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
ee61ae0
|
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.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
6c1a72e
|
You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
fb17738
|
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 th..
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
3191f3f
|
This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
|
|
sci-fi
|
Douglas Adams |
98fd684
|
I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
|
|
intelligence
|
Douglas Adams |
7632b95
|
Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
53610c4
|
Reality is frequently inaccurate.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
0945699
|
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 worl..
|
|
humor
|
Douglas Adams |
8ce0bee
|
So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die." "Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried. "What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round. "No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all."
|
|
science
humor
|
Douglas Adams |
3b1e476
|
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 |
02b73fa
|
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
|
|
money
|
Douglas Adams |
811eecd
|
O Deep Thought computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us...." he paused, "The Answer." "The Answer?" said Deep Thought. "The Answer to what?" "Life!" urged Fook. "The Universe!" said Lunkwill. "Everything!" they said in chorus. Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection. "Tricky," he said finally. "But can you do it?" Again, a significant pause. "Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it." ..
|
|
deep-thought
|
Douglas Adams |
48c0f51
|
The Answer to the Great Question... Of Life, the Universe and Everything... Is... Forty-two,' said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
68ca579
|
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. 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." "But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could n..
|
|
man
god
h2g2
hitchhiker-s-guide
rationalism
logic
|
Douglas Adams |
7dd11bf
|
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
4698d51
|
What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer.
|
|
humor
survival
dying
|
Douglas Adams |
1bd80a7
|
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
|
|
|
Douglas Adams |
a185daf
|
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.
|
|
understanding
|
Douglas Adams |
edbe955
|
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
|
|
truth
presidency
wishful-thinking
|
Douglas Adams |
c46e33f
|
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.
|
|
humor
interesting
|
Douglas Adams |
9199c42
|
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.
|
|
science
life
technology
|
Douglas Adams |