Douglas Adams
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"Douglas Noel Adams" was an English writer, List of humorists/humorist, and dramatist.

Adams is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which originated in 1978 as a BBC The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)/radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime and generated a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series)/television series, several stage plays, comics, a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)/computer game, and in 2005 a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)/feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in Radio Academy/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), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990), 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.

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It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

In order to fly, all one must do is simply miss the ground.

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'.

She is the least benightedly unintelligent organic lifeform it has ever been my distinct lack of pleasure not to have been able to avoid meeting.

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.

Anything that happens, happens. Anthing 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.

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

The big corporations are suddenly taking notice of the web, and their reactions have been slow. Even the computer industry failed to see the importance of the Internet, but that's not saying much. Let's face it, the computer industry failed to see that the century would end.

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

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

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

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.

Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity. I think media are at their most interesting before anybody's thought of calling them art, when people still think they're just a load of junk.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want 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. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.

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

Today must be a Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Anything invented before your fifteenth birthday is the order of nature. That's how it should be. Anything invented between your 15th and 35th birthday is new and exciting, and you might get a career there. Anything invented after that day, however, is against nature and should be prohibited.

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 and repair.

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

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

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.

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am therefor excused from saving Universes.

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

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

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.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

Life? Don't talk to me about life!

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

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.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.

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

Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.

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

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

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.

What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer.

It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.

There are two things in particular that it [the computer industry] failed to foresee: one was the coming of the Internet(...); the other was the fact that the century would end.

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 somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

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.

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.

I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons.

There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensation and my state of mind?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

'This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'

There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers what exactly 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 that states that this has already happened.

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.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.