Douglas Adams' best quotes
The top 3 according to 303 votes from people: "Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. · In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. · The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.. (Updated Feb 24, 2025.)
The funniest and wisest lines from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the rest of Douglas Adams' writing, each with the book it comes from.
Top 12
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1
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979).
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2
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
The opening of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980).
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3
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
The Vogon fleet arriving over Earth, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979).
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4
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.
Ford Prefect, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979).
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5
A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.
The Guide's entry on towels, origin of Towel Day (25 May).
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6
This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Arthur Dent, on the day the Earth is demolished (1979).
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7
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
The dolphins' farewell message before leaving Earth; title of the fourth book (1984).
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8
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place.
Opening of the first book (1979): «And some said that even the trees had been a bad move.»
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9
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
Adams, famously late with every book; collected in The Salmon of Doubt (2002).
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10
…a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
What the Nutri-Matic machine gives Arthur when he asks for tea (1979).
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11
Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
The third of his three rules about how we react to technology, in The Salmon of Doubt (2002).
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12
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
Mostly Harmless (1992).
Candidates
They don't make it into the top 12… yet. Vote for them to move them up.
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13
He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left.
From The Salmon of Doubt (2002).
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14
Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction.
From The Salmon of Doubt (2002).
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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Comments (7)
Add «Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect» from The Salmon of Doubt.
Adams was a genius, miss him.
Happy Towel Day everyone (25 May)!
42. Always 42.
Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. Said this at work today.
The deadlines one is my life.
And the one about the world looking different from three feet to the left.