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Hitchhiker S Guide Quotes

Quotes tagged as "hitchhiker-s-guide" Showing 1-13 of 13
Douglas Adams
“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.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“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 not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“I like the cover," he said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong.

This was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."

This has led to some interesting consequences. For instance, when the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Tralal literally (it said "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists: instead of "Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists"), they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly 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, listen...”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.”
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Douglas Adams
“Janx Spirit : Janx Spirit is a rather potent alcoholic beverage, and is used heavily in drinking games that are played in the hyperspace ports that serve the madranite mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta. The game is not unlike the Earth game called Indian Wrestling, and is played like this: Two contestants sit at either side of a table, with a glass in front of each of them. Between them would be placed a bottle of Janx Spirit — as immortalized in that ancient Orion mining song :

“Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”

Each of the two contestants would then concentrate their will on the bottle and attempt to tip it and pour spirit into the glass of his opponent – who would then have to drink it. The bottle would then be refilled. The game would be played again. And again. Once you started to lose you would probably keep losing, because one of the effects of Janx spirit is to depress telepsychic power. As soon as a predetermined quantity had been consumed, the final loser would have to perform a forfeit, which was usually obscenely biological.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams
“In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship—he merely left his office late one morning, and has never returned since. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has simply popped out for a sandwich and will yet return to put in a solid afternoon's work.
Strictly speaking, all editors since Lig Lury Jr., have therefore been designated acting editors, and Lig's desk is still preserved the way he left it, with the addition of a small sign that says LIG LURY, JR., EDITOR, MISSING, PRESUMED FED.”
Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

Douglas Adams
“Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy profession, and a large number of its practitioners spend many nights drowning their sorrows in Ouisghian Zodahs.”
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Douglas Adams
“Arthur lay in startled stillness on the acceleration couch. He wasn't certain whether he had just got space-sickness or religion.”
Douglas Adams, Life the Universe and Everything - The Folio Society Edition

Douglas Adams
“Kompjuter je samom sebi zbrinuto zaćeretao primijetivši da se jedna zračna komora otvorila i zatim zatvorila bez ikakve logike.
To je bilo zato što je logika otišla sjesti na granu.
U Galaksiji se upravo otvorila rupa. Potrajala je točno jednu ništinku sekunde, bila je široka jenu ništinku centimetra, i dugačka poprilično milijuna svjetlosnih godina.
Dok se zatvaraala iz nje su ispale gomile papirnatih kapica i šarenih balona i odlutale univerzumom. Tim od sedam metar-visokih tržišnih analitičara ispao je iz nje i umro, dijelom od gušenja a dijelom od iznenađenja.
Dvjesto i trideset devet tisuća slabo pečenih jaja također je ispalo iz nje, materijalizirajući se u ogromnoj uzbibanoj gomili u izgladnjeloj zemlji Poghril u sustavu Pansel.
Cijelo poghrilsko pleme poumiralo je od gladi, osim zadnjeg člana koji je nekoliko tjedana kasnije umro od trovanja kolesterolom.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy