Background Image
...
My Universe Is My Eyes And My Ears. Anything Else Is Hearsay.
-Douglas Adams
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

My Universe Is My

Douglas Adams
...
My Universe Is My Eyes And My Ears. Anything Else Is Hearsay.

Understanding the Quote: "my universe is my eyes and my ears. anything else is hearsay...."

This quote by Douglas Adams reflects deeply on the theme of eye. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Eye, Ears, Hearsay, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Douglas Adams interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is celebrated for insightful thoughts on eye and ears. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 59751
Topic
Eye
Ears
Hearsay
More From Douglas Adams
In The Old Days, Writers Used To Sit In Front Of A Typewriter And Stare Out Of The Window. Nowadays, Because Of The Marvels Of Convergent Technology, The Thing You Type On And The Window You Stare Out Of Are Now The Same Thing.
Technology
Typewriters
Window
In Fact, A Very Similar Phrase Was Invented To Account For The Sudden Transition Of Wood, Metal, Plastic And Concrete Into An Explosive Condition, Which Was "nonlinear, Catastrophic Structural Exasperation," Or To Put It Another Way--as A Junior Cabinet Minister Did On Television The Following Night In A Phrase Which Was To Haunt The Rest Of His Career--the Check-in Desk Had Just Got "fundamentally Fed Up With Being Where It Was.
Night
Careers
Transition
You Just Come Along With Me And Have A Good Time. The Galaxy's A Fun Place. You'll Need To Have This Fish In Your Ear.
Fun
Needs
Ears
The More I Think About Our Species The More I Think We Just Do Stuff And Make Up Explanations Later When Asked. But It's Not True That I Would Rather Write Than Read. I Would Rather Read Than Write. To Be Honest I Would Rather Hang Upside Down In A Bucket Than Write.
Writing
Thinking
Buckets
‎if You Ever Find You Need Help Again, You Know, If You're In Trouble, Need A Hand Out Of A Corner..." "yeah?" "please Don't Hesitate To Get Lost.
Hands
Needs
Helping
You Barbarians!' He Yelled. 'i'll Sue The Council For Every Penny It's Got! I'll Have You Hung, Drawn And Quartered! And Whipped! And Boiled...until...until...until...until You've Had Enough.' Ford Was Running After Him. Very Very Fast. 'and Then I Will Do It Again!' Yelled Arthur, 'and When I've Finished I Will Take All The Little Bits, And I Will Jump On Them!
Running
Littles
Barbarians
In Order To Fly, All One Must Do Is Simply Miss The Ground.
Order
Missing
Racist
Radio Did Not Kill Books And Television Did Not Kill Radio Or Movies - What Television Did Kill Was Cinema Newsreel. Tv Does It Much Better Because It Can Deliver It Instantly. Who Wants Last Week's News?
Book
Doe
Cinema
And Then, One Thursday, Nearly Two Thousand Years After One Man Had Been Nailed To A Tree For Saying How Great It Would Be To Be Nice To People For A Change, A Girl Sitting On Her Own In A Small Café In Rickmansworth Suddenly Realized What It Was That Had Been Going Wrong All This Time, And She Finally Knew How The World Could Be Made A Good And Happy Place. This Time It Was Right, It Would Work, And No One Would Have To Get Nailed To Anything.
Girl
Nice
Men
A Nerd Is Someone Who Uses A Telephone To Talk To Other People About Telephones.
People
Nerd
Use
The Books People Are Writing Today, They're Too Long. You Get A Little Bit Of Plot, And Then Pages And Pages Of Creative Writing. They Teach Classes In How To Do This. They Should Teach Classes In How To Stop!
Book
Writing
Class
Here, For Whatever Reason, Is The World. And Here It Stays. With Me On It.
World
Reason
Stay With Me
In Cases Of Major Discrepancy Its Always Reality Thats Got It Wrong ... Reality Is Frequently Inaccurate.
Reality
Cases
Discrepancies
Stomp Stomp. Whirr. Pleased To Be Of Service. Shut Up. Thank You. Stomp Stomp Stomp Stomp Stomp. Whirr. Thank You For Making A Simple Door Very Happy. Hope Your Diodes Rot. Thank You. Have A Nice Day. Stomp Stomp Stomp Stomp. Whirr. It Is My Pleasure To Open For You... Zark Off. ...and My Satisfaction To Close Again With The Knowledge Of A Job Well Done. I Said Zark Off. Thank You For Listening To This Message.
Jobs
Nice
Simple
I Was Created To Fulfill A Function And I Failed In It. I Negated My Own Existence.
Function
Existence
My Own
It Is Folly To Say You Know What Is Happening To Other People. Only They Know, If They Exist. They Have Their Own Universes Of Their Own Eyes And Ears.
Eye
People
Ears
He Has Personality Problems Beyond The Dreams Of Analysts.
Dream
Personality
Problem
Trillian Had Come To Suspect That The Main Reason [zaphood] Had Had Such A Wild And Successful Life Was That He Never Really Understood The Significance Of Anything He Did.
Successful
Reason
Significance
What Do You Get If You Multiply Six By Nine?" "six By Nine. Forty Two." "that's It. That's All There Is." "i Always Thought Something Was Fundamentally Wrong With The Universe
Two
Nine
Six
The Heart Of Gold Fled On Silently Through The Night Of Space, Now On Conventional Photon Drive. Its Crew Of Four Were Ill As Ease Knowing That They Had Been Brought Together Not Of Their Own Volition Or By Simple Coincidence, But By Some Curious Perversion Of Physics- As If Relationships Between People Were Susceptible To The Same Laws That Governed The Relationships Between Atoms And Molecules
Heart
Simple
Night
On The Delivery Plate Of The Nutri-matic Drink Synthesizer Was A Small Tray, On Which Say Three Bone China Cups And Saucers, A Bone China Jug Of Milk, A Silver Teapot Full Of The Best Tea Arthur Had Ever Tasted And A Small Printed Note Saying "wait.
Waiting
Tea
Jugs
No One Really Knows What Mattresses Are Meant To Gain From Their Lives Either. They Are Large, Friendly, Pocket-sprung Creatures That Live Quiet Private Lives In The Marshes Of Sqornshellous Zeta. Many Of Them Get Caught, Slaughtered, Dried Out, Shipped Out And Slept On. None Of Them Seems To Mind This And All Of Them Are Called Zem.
Mind
Friendly
Pockets
There Is A Piece Of Me That Likes To Fondly Imagine My Maverick And Rebellious Nature, But, More Accurately, I Like To Have A Nice And Cosy Institution That I Can Rub Up Against A Little Bit.
Nice
Pieces
Littles
The Reason Why So Many Sects Hang Around Airports Looking For Converts: They Know That People There Are At Their Most Vulnerable And Perplexed, And Ready To Accept Any Kind Of Guidance.
Airports
People
Atheism
Democracy Is All About Not Electing The Wrong Man-eating Lizard.
Men
Democracy
Lizards
He Sniggered. He Didn't Like To Think Of Himself As The Sort Of Person Who Giggled Or Sniggered, But He Had To Admit That He Had Been Giggling And Sniggering Almost Continuously For Well Over Half An Hour Now.
Thinking
Half
Hours
Obviously Somebody Had Been Appallingly Incompetent And He Hoped To God It Wasn't Him.
Incompetence
Incompetent
Zaphod Did Not Want To Tangle With Them And, Deciding That Just As Discretion Is The Better Part Of Valor, So Was Cowardice Is The Better Part Of Discretion, He Valiantly Hid Himself In A Closet.
Want
Cowardice
Closets
The Lights Went Out In His Eyes For Absolutely The Very Last Time Ever.
Eye
Light
Atheism
So You Can Imagine What Happens When A Mainland Species Gets Introduced To An Island. It Would Be Like Introducing Al Capone, Genghis Khan And Rupert Murdoch Into The Isle Of Wight - The Locals Wouldn't Stand A Chance.
Islands
Would Be
Als
The Ships Hung In The Sky In Much The Same Way That Bricks Don't.
Funny
Hilarious
Laughter
Space Is Big. You Just Won't Believe How Vastly, Hugely, Mind-bogglingly Big It Is.
Believe
Space
Mind
Deep In The Fundamental Heart Of Mind And Universe There Is A Reason.
Heart
Mind
Fundamentals
Even A Manically Depressed Robot Is Better To Talk To Than Nobody.
Robots
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.
Badass
Philosophy
Thinking
If I Want To Read Something That's Really Giving Me Something Serious And Fundamental To Think About, About The Human Condition, If You Like, Or What We're All Doing Here, Or What's Going On, Then I'd Rather Read Something By A Scientist In The Life Sciences, Like Richard Dawkins, For Instance.
Thinking
Giving
Fundamentals
Shee, You Guys Are So Unhip It's A Wonder Your Bums Don't Fall Off.
Fall
Guy
Hitchhiking
You Cannot See What I See Because You See What You See. You Cannot Know What I Know Because You Know What You Know. What I See And What I Know Cannot Be Added To What You See And What You Know Because They Are Not Of The Same Kind. Neither Can It Replace What You See And What You Know, Because That Would Be To Replace You Yourself." "hang On, Can I Write This Down?" Said Arthur, Excitedly Fumbling In His Pocket For A Pencil.
Writing
Pockets
Would Be
The Last Ever Dolphin Message Was Misinterpreted As A Surprisingly Sophisticated Attempt To Do A Double-backwards-somersault Through A Hoop Whilst Whistling The 'star Spangled Banner', But In Fact The Message Was This: So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.
Stars
Long
Lasts
To Boldly Split Infinitives That No Man Had Split Before.
Men
Splits
Infinitive
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.
Reality
Afterlife
Religion
Why Are People Born? Why Do They Die? Why Do They Want To Spend So Much Of The Intervening Time Wearing Digital Watches?
People
Watches
Want
The Somebody Else's Problem Field Is Much Simpler And More Effective, And What's More Can Be Run For Over A Hundred Years On A Single Torch Battery. This Is Because It Relies On People's Natural Disposition Not To See Anything They Don't Want To, Weren't Expecting, Or Can't Explain.
Running
Years
People
Ha, But My Life Is A Box Of Wormgears.
Life Is
Boxes
The Hardest Assumption To Challenge Is The One You Don't Even Know You Are Making.
Challenges
Assumption
Hardest
It Was One Of Those Pictures That Children Are Supposed To Like But Don't. Full Of Endearing Little Animals Doing Endearing Things, You Know?
Children
Animal
Littles
Who Should Play The Lead Role In A Film About Me? Dunno. Danny De Vito? Jeff Goldblum? Meryl Streep? Someone Of That Kind.
Play
Roles
Kind
If You Really Want To Understand Something, The Best Way Is To Try And Explain It To Someone Else.
Trying
Want
Way
I Refuse To Answer That Question On The Grounds That I Don't Know The Answer
Funny
Witty
Humor
What God Would Be Hanging Around Terminal Two Of Heathrow Airport Trying To Catch The 15:37 Flight To Oslo?
Airports
Two
Atheism
Oh Dear,' Says God, 'i Hadn't Thought Of That,' And Promptly Vanishes In A Puff Of Logic.
Puff
Hitchhiking
Logic
They Wouldn’t Even Lift A Finger To Save Their Own Grandmothers From The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal Without Orders Signed In Triplicate, Sent In, Sent Back, Queried, Lost, Found, Subjected To Public Inquiry, Lost Again, And Finally Buried In Soft Peat For Three Months And Recycled As Firelighters.
Grandmother
Order
Three
Many Words And Expressions Which Only A Matter Of Decades Ago Were Considered So Distastefully Explicit That, Were They Merely To Be Breathed In Public, The Perpetrator Would Be Shunned, Barred From Polite Society, And In Extreme Cases Shot Through The Lungs, Are Now Thought To Be Very Healthy And Proper, And Their Use In Everyday Speech And Writing Is Evidence Of A Well-adjusted, Relaxed And Totally Un****ed-up Personality.
Writing
Expression
Personality
"i Refuse To Prove That I Exist" Says God, "for Proof Denies Faith, And Without Faith, I Am Nothing." "oh," Says Man, "but The Babel Fish Is A Dead Give-away, Isn't It? It Proves You Exist, And So Therefore You Don't. Q.e.d." "oh, I Hadn't Thought Of That," Says God, Who Promptly Vanishes In A Puff Of Logic.
Atheist
Men
Giving
I Only Know As Much About Myself As My Mind Can Work Out Under Its Current Conditions. And Its Current Conditions Are Not Good.
Work Out
Mind
Currents
In An Infinite Universe Anything Can Happen.
Infinite
Anything Can Happen
Happenstance
I Seem To Be Having Tremendous Difficulty With My Life-style
Style
Difficulty
Life Style
I Love To Keep Poking And Prodding At It. I’ve Thought About It So Much Over The Years That That Fascination Is Bound To Spill Over Into My Writing.
Writing
Years
Fascination
The Lights Were Off So That His Heads Could Avoid Looking At Each Other Because Neither Of Them Was Currently A Particular Engaging Sight, Nor Had They Been Since He Had Made The Error Of Looking Into His Soul. It Had Indeed Been An Error. It Had Been Late One Night-- Of Course. It Had Been A Difficult Day-- Of Course. There Had Been Soulful Music Playing On The Ship's Sound System-- Of Course. And He Had, Of Course, Been Slightly Drunk. In Other Words, All The Usual Conditions That Bring On A Bout Of Soul Searching Had Applied, But It Had, Nevertheless, Clearly Been An Error.
Night
Errors
Light
The Only Person For Whom The House Was In Any Way Special Was Arthur Dent, And That Was Only Because It Happened To Be The One He Lived In.
House
Special
Way
Life! Don't Talk To Me About Life!
Life
Hitchhiking
Talk To Me
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.
Morning
Editors
Office
The Moment At Which Two People, Approaching From Opposite Ends Of A Long Passageway, Recognize Each Other And Immediately Pretend They Haven T. This Is To Avoid The Ghastly Embarrassment Of Having To Continue Recognizing Each Other The Whole Length Of The Corridor.
Opposites
Two
Long
He Inched His Way Up The Corridor As If He Would Rather Be Yarding His Way Down It, Which Was True.
Way
Ifs
Corridors
He Shifted His Weight From Foot To Foot, But It Was Equally Uncomfortable On Each.
Feet
Weight
Uncomfortable
Ford Looked At Him Severely. And No Sneaky Knocking Down Mr Dent's House Whilst He's Away, Alright?" He Said. The Mere Thought," Growled Mr Prosser, "hadn't Even Begun To Speculate," He Continued, Settling Himself Back, "about The Merest Possibility Of Crossing My Mind.
House
Mind
Sneaky
Every Country Is Like A Particular Type Of Person. America Is Like A Belligerent, Adolescent Boy, Canada Is Like An Intelligent, 35 Year Old Woman. Australia Is Like Jack Nicholson.
Country
Intelligent
Boys
If We See You Smoking We Will Assume You Are On Fire And Take Appropriate Action.
Fire
Cigarette Smoke
Smoking
This Planet Has — Or Rather Had — A Problem, Which Was This: Most Of The People Living On It Were Unhappy For Pretty Much All Of The Time.
You Make Me Happy
People
Unhappy
We All Like To Congregate At Boundary Conditions. Where Land Meets Water. Where Earth Meets Air. Where Bodies Meet Mind. Where Space Meets Time. We Like To Be On One Side, And Look At The Other.
Time
Clouds
Air
The Simple Truth Is That Interstellar Distances Will Not Fit Into The Human Imagination.
Distance
Simple
Imagination
We Are Now Cruising At A Level Of Two To The Power Of Twenty-five Thousand To One Against And Falling, And We Will Be Restoring Normality Just As Soon As We Are Sure What Is Normal Anyway.
Fall
Two
Levels
It Can Hardly Be A Coincidence That No Language On Earth Has Ever Produced The Expression, 'as Pretty As An Airport.
Inspirational
Funny
Travel
It Takes A Long Time Before We Really Get To Grips With This [darwin's 'on The Origin Of Species'] And Begin To Understand It, Because Not Only Does It Seem Incredible And Thoroughly Demeaning To Us, But It's Yet Another Shock To Our System To Discover That Not Only Are We Not The Centre Of The Universe And We're Not Made By Anything, But We Started Out As Some Kind Of Slime And Got To Where We Are Via Being A Monkey. It Just Doesn't Read Well.
Long
Doe
Monkeys
And Then, Just When You Think That You Have Experienced All The Wonders That This World Has To Offer, You Round A Peak And Suddenly Think You're Doing The Whole Thing Over Again, But This Time On Drugs.
Nature
Thinking
Drug
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?
Beauty
Beautiful
Religious
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.
Art
Thinking
Media
The Quality Of Any Advice Anybody Has To Offer Has To Be Judged Against The Quality Of Life They Actually Lead.
Advice
Quality
Life Decision
"would You Like To See The Menu?" He Said. "or Would You Like To Meet The Dish Of The Day?" [...] "good Evening," It Lowed And Sat Back Heavily On Its Haunches, "i Am The Main Dish Of The Day. May I Interest You In Parts Of My Body?"
Body
May
Evening
Assumptions Are The Things We Don't Know We're Making.
Assumption
Knows
The Impossible Often Has A Kind Of Integrity To It Which The Merely Improbable Lacks. How Often Have You Been Presented With An Apparently Rational Explanation Of Something That Works In All Respects Other Than One, Which Is Just That It Is Hopelessly Improbable? Your Instinct Is To Say, 'yes, But He Or She Simply Wouldn't Do That.
Integrity
Impossible
Kind
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.
Funny
Life
Orange
Sherlock Holmes Observed That Once You Have Eliminated The Impossible Then Whatever Remains, However Improbable, Must Be The Answer. I, However, Do Not Like To Eliminate The Impossible.
Truth
Answers
Impossible
Generally, Old Media Don't Die. They Just Have To Grow Old Gracefully. Guess What, We Still Have Stone Masons. They Haven't Been The Primary Purveyors Of The Written Word For A While Now Of Course, But They Still Have A Role Because You Wouldn't Want A Tv Screen On Your Headstone.
Media
Hitchhiking
Want
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.
Food
Science
Law
I Begged Her, 'please Don't Leave Me Stranded In The Middle Of Some Primitive Zarking Forest With No Medical Help And A Head Injury. I Could Be In Serious Trouble And So Could She.'" "what Did She Say?" "she Hit Me On The Head With The Rock Again," Ford Responded Curtly. "i Think I Can Confirm That Was My Daughter." "sweet Kid." "you Have To Get To Know Her," Said Arthur. "she Eases Up, Does She?" "no, But You Get A Better Sense Of When To Duck.
Daughter
Sweet
Kids
He Would Have Felt Safe If Alongside The Dentrassis' Underwear, The Piles Of Sqornshellous Mattresses And The Man From Betelgeuse Holding Up A Small Yellow Fish And Offering To Put It In His Ear He Had Been Able To See Just A Small Packet Of Cornflakes. But He Couldn't, And He Didn't Feel Safe.
Men
Offering
Yellow
Science Fiction That's Just About People Wandering Around In Space Ships Shooting Each Other With Ray Guns Is Very Dull. I Like It When It Enables You To Do Fairly Radical Reinterpretations Of Human Experience, Just To Show All The Different Interpretations That Can Be Put On Apparently Fairly Simple And Commonplace Events. That I Find Fun.
Fun
Gun
Simple
A Life That Is Burdened With Expectations Is A Heavy Life. Its Fruit Is Sorrow And Disappointment.
Disappointment
Expectations
Sorrow
I May Not Have Gone Where I Intended To Go, But I Think I Have Ended Up Where I Intended To Be.
Life
Positive
Travel
Imagine A Puddle Waking Up One Morning And Thinking, " This Is An Interesting World I Find Myself In, An Interesting Hole I Find Myself In; Fits Me Rather Neatly, Doesn't It? In Fact It Fits Me Staggeringly Well! It Must Have Been Made To Have Me In It!
Witty
Morning
Thinking
Unfortunately This Electric Monk Had Developed A Fault, And Had Started To Believe All Kinds Of Things, More Or Less At Random. It Was Even Beginning To Believe Things They'd Have Difficulty Believing In Salt Lake City.
Believe
Lakes
Cities
The Only Moral It Is Possible To Draw From This Story Is That One Should Never Throw The Q Letter Into A Privet Bush, But Unfortunately There Are Times When It Is Unavoidable.
Stories
Letters
Moral
She Had What It Took: Great Hair, A Profound Understanding Of Strategic Lip Gloss, The Intelligence To Understand The World And A Tiny Secret Interior Deadness Which Meant She Didn’t Care.
Hair
Profound
Understanding
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. And . . . The Opportunity To Spend 70 Or 80 Years Of Your Life In Such A Universe Is Time Well Spent As Far As I Am Concerned.
Mean
Opportunity
Years
If You Took A Couple Of David Bowies And Stuck One Of The David Bowies On The Top Of The Other David Bowie, Then Attached Another David Bowie To The End Of Each Of The Arms Of The Upper Of The First Two David Bowies And Wrapped The Whole Business Up In A Dirty Beach Robe You Would Then Have Something Which Didn't Exactly Look Like John Watson, But Which Those Who Knew Him Would Find Hauntingly Familiar.
Beach
Couple
Dirty
The Dew Has Fallen With A Particularly Sickening Thud This Morning.
Morning
Dew
Fallen
I Tend To Get Very Suspicious Of Anything That Thinks It's Art While It's Being Created.
Art
Thinking
Suspicious
It All Sounds Rather Naive And Sentimental To Be Talking About Children Laughing And Dancing And Singing Together When We All Know Perfectly Well That What Children Do In Real Life Is Snarl And Take Drugs.
Children
Real
Talking
The Difference Between Us And A Computer Is That, The Computer Is Blindingly Stupid, But It Is Capable Of Being Stupid Many, Many Million Times A Second.
Stupid
Differences
Computer
He Almost Danced To The Fridge, Found The Three Least Hairy Things In It, Put Them On A Plate And Watched Them Intently For Two Minutes. Since They Made No Attempt To Move Within That Time He Called Them Breakfast And Ate Them. Between Them They Killed A Virulent Space Disease He'd Picked Up Without Knowing It In The Flargathon Gas Swamps A Few Days Earlier, Which Otherwise Would Have Killed Off Half The Population Of The Western Hemisphere, Blinded The Other Half, And Driven Everyone Else Psychotic And Sterile, So The Earth Was Lucky There.
Moving
Two
Knowing
It's Not The Fall That Kills You; It's The Sudden Stop At The End.
Fall
Ends
After A While He Played With The Pencil And The Paper Again And Was Delighted When He Discovered How To Make A Mark With The One On The Other. Various Noises Continued Outside, But He Didn't Know Whether They Were Real Or Not. He Then Talked To His Table For A Week To See How It Would React.
Real
Paper
Tables
The More Susan Waited, The More The Doorbell Didn't Ring. Or The Phone.
Phones
Rings
I Am Fascinated By Religion. (that's A Completely Different Thing From Believing In It!) It Has Had Such An Incalculably Huge Effect On Human Affairs. What Is It? What Does It Represent? Why Have We Invented It? How Does It Keep Going? What Will Become Of It? I Love To Keep Poking And Prodding At It. I've Thought About It So Much Over The Years That That Fascination Is Bound To Spill Over Into My Writing.
Believe
Writing
Years
Alone Of All The Races On Earth, They Seem To Be Free From The 'grass Is Greener On The Other Side Of The Fence' Syndrome, And Roundly Proclaim That Australia Is, In Fact, The Other Side Of That Fence.
Funny
Humor
Race
When The Girl Sitting At The Next Table Looked Away From A Moment, Dirk Leaned Over And Took Her Coffee. He Knew That He Was Perfectly Safe Doing This Because She Would Simply Not Be Able To Believe That This Had Happened.
Girl
Coffee
Believe
In Moments Of Great Stress, Every Life Form That Exists Gives Out A Tiny Subliminal Signal.
Stress
Giving
Tiny
I Can See We're In For A Fabulous Evening's Apocalypse.
Fabulous
Evening
Apocalypse
And All Dared To Brave Unknown Terrors, To Do Mighty Deeds, To Boldly Split Infinitives That No Man Had Split Before--and Thus Was The Empire Forged.
Men
Brave
Deeds
Nobody Got Murdered Before Lunch. But Nobody. People Weren't Up To It. You Needed A Good Lunch To Get Both The Blood-sugar And Blood-lust Levels Up.
Blood
Lunch
People
Many Respectable Physicists Said That They Weren't Going To Stand For This -- Partly Because It Was A Debasement Of Science, But Mostly Because They Didn't Get Invited To Those Sort Of Parties.
Party
Said
Physicist
I Have Terrible Periods Of Lack Of Confidence. I Just Don't Believe I Can Do It And No Evidence To The Contrary Will Sway Me From That View.
Believe
Views
Periods
Aberystwyth (n.) A Nostalgic Yearning Which Is In Itself More Pleasant Than The Thing Being Yearned For.
Nostalgic
Yearning
Pleasant
If There's Anything More Important Than My Ego Around, I Want It Caught And Shot Now.
Ego
Important
Want
To Trin Tragula's Horror, The Shock Completely Annihilated Her Brain; But To His Satisfaction He Realized That He Had Proved Conclusively That If Life Is Going To Exist In A Universe Of This Size, Then The One Thing It Cannot Afford To Have Is A Sense Of Proportion.
Brain
Satisfaction
Size
This Must Be Thursday. I Never Could Get The Hang Of Thursdays.
Hitchhiking
Thursday
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
The Bird That Would Soar Above The Plain Of Tradition And Prejudice Must Have Strong Wings.
Courage
Strong
Wings
When You're Cruising Down The Road In The Fast Lane And You Lazily Sail Past A Few Hard-driving Cars And Are Feeling Pretty Pleased With Yourself And Then Accidently Change Down From Fourth To First Instead Of Third Thus Making Your Engine Leap Out Of Your Hood In A Rather Ugly Mess, It Tends To Throw You Off Stride In Much The Same Way That This Remark Threw Ford Prefect Off His.
Past
Car
Feelings
How Do You Feel?" He Asked Him. "like A Military Academy," Said Arthur. "bits Of Me Keep On Passing Out.
Military
Arthur
Passing
The Guide Is Definitive. Reality Is Frequently Inaccurate.
Reality
Statistics
Guides
Words Used Carelessly, As If They Did Not Matter In Any Serious Way, Often Allowed Otherwise Well-guarded Truths To Seep Through.
Matter
Way
Serious
Shoeburyness (abs.n.) The Vague Uncomfortable Feeling You Get When Sitting On A Seat Which Is Still Warm From Somebody Else's Bottom.
Uncomfortable Feeling
Feelings
Sitting
If On The Other Hand He Went To Pay His Respects To The Door And It Wasn't There . . . What Then? The Answer, Of Course, Was Very Simple. He Had A Whole Board Of Circuits For Dealing With Exactly This Problem, In Fact This Was The Very Heart Of His Function. He Would Continue To Believe In It Whatever The Facts Turned Out To Be, What Else Was The Meaning Of Belief? The Door Would Still Be There, Even If The Door Was Not.
Believe
Heart
Simple
Time Doesn't Necessarily Happen In Chronological Order.
Time
Order
Happens
Douglas Adams Did Not Enjoy Writing, And He Enjoyed It Less As Time Went On. He Was A Bestselling, Acclaimed, And Much-loved Novelist Who Had Not Set Out To Be A Novelist, And Who Took Little Joy In The Process Of Crafting Novels. He Loved Talking To Audiences. He Liked Writing Screenplays. He Liked Being At The Cutting Edge Of Technology And Inventing
Writing
Cutting
Technology
I Don't Go To Mythical Places With Strange Men.
Men
Strange Man
Strange
For As Long As He Could Remember, He’d Suffered From A Vague Nagging Feeling Of Being Not All There.
Long
Feelings
Nagging
Reality Is Hopelessly Inaccurate.
Reality
The History Of Every Major Galactic Civilization Tends To Pass Through Three Distinct And Recognizable Phases, Those Of Survival, Inquiry And Sophistication, Otherwise Known As The How, Why, And Where Phases. For Instance, The First Phase Is Characterized By The Question 'how Can We Eat?' The Second By The Question 'why Do We Eat?' And The Third By The Question 'where Shall We Have Lunch?
Civilization
Lunch
Survival
Imagine" He Said, "never Even Thinking, 'we Are Alone,' Simply Because It Has Never Occurred To You To Think That There's Any Other Way To Be.
Thinking
Way
Imagine
Arthur Shook His Head And Sat Down. He Looked Up. “i Thought You Must Be Dead …” He Said Simply. “so Did I For A While,” Said Ford, “and Then I Decided I Was A Lemon For A Couple Of Weeks. I Kept Myself Amused All That Time Jumping In And Out Of A Gin And Tonic.
Couple
Jumping
Gin And Tonic
A Learning Experience Is One Of Those Things That Says, 'you Know That Thing You Just Did? Don't Do That.
Life
Regret
Mistake
The World Wide Web Is The Only Thing I Know Of Whose Shortened Form Takes Three Times Longer To Say Than What It's Short For.
Three
World
Form
He Actually Caught Himself Saying Things Like "yippee," As He Pranced Ridiculously Round The House.
House
Caught
Rounds
You May Not Instantly See Why I Bring The Subject Up, But That Is Because My Mind Works So Phenomenally Fast, And I Am At A Rough Estimate Thirty Billion Times More Intelligent Than You. Let Me Give You An Example. Think Of A Number, Any Number.” “er, Five,” Said The Mattress. “wrong,” Said Marvin. “you See?
Intelligent
Thinking
Numbers
A Theory Of The Universe That States: If Anyone Finds Out What The Universe Is For, It Will Disappear And Be Replaced By Something More Bizarrely Inexplicable.
Disappear
States
Inexplicable
He Had A Tremendous Propensity For Getting Lost When Driving. This Was Largely Because Of His Method Of “zen” Navigation, Which Was Simply To Find Any Car That Looked As If It Knew Where It Was Going And Follow It. The Results Were More Often Surprising Than Successful, But He Felt It Was Worth It For The Sake Of The Few Occasions When It Was Both.
Successful
Car
Getting Lost
But Nowadays Everybody's A Comedian, Even The Weather Girls And Continuity Announcers. We Laugh At Everything. Not Intelligently Anymore, Not With Sudden Shock, Astonishment, Or Revelation, Just Relentlessly And Meaninglessly. No More Rain Showers In The Desert, Just Mud And Drizzle Everywhere, Occasionally Illuminated By The Flash Of Paparazzi.
Girl
Rain
Weather
They Live In Perpetual Fear Of The Time They Call "the Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief
White
Handkerchiefs
Perpetual
There Is No Problem So Complicated That You Can't Find A Very Simple Answer To It If You Look At It Right.
Simple
Looks
Answers
Well The Hours Are Good...' ... 'but Now You Come To Mention It, Most Of The Actual Minutes Are Pretty Lousy.
Hours
Minutes
Wells
Why Should I Want To Make Anything Up? Life's Bad Enough As It Is Without Wanting To Invent Any More Of It.
Want
Enough
Should
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.
Experience
Way
Perceive
One Of The Problems Of Taking Things Apart And Seeing How They Work - Supposing You're Trying To Find Out How A Cat Works--you Take That Cat Apart To See How It Works, What You've Got In Your Hands Is A Non-working Cat. The Cat Wasn't A Sort Of Clunky Mechanism That Was Susceptible To Our Available Tools Of Analysis.
Cat
Hands
Supposing That
The Seat Received Him In A Loose And Distant Kind Of Way, Like An Aunt Who Disapproves Of The Last Fifteen Years Of Your Life And Will Therefore Furnish You With A Basic Sherry, But Refuses To Catch Your Eye.
Eye
Aunt
Years
Earthmen Are Not Proud Of Their Ancestors And Never Invite Them Round To Dinner.
Funny
Family
Food
Protect Me From Knowing What I Don't Need To Know. Protect Me From Even Knowing That There Are Things To Know That I Don't Know. Protect Me From Knowing That I Decided Not To Know About The Things That I Decided Not To Know About. Amen. [...] Lord, Lord, Lord. Protect Me From The Consequences Of The Above Prayer.
Funny
Prayer
Knowing
You Turn The Computer Into The Storyteller And The Player Into The Audience, Like In The Old Days When The Storyteller Would Actually Respond To The Audience, Rather Than Just Having The Audience Respond To The Storyteller. I Had An Enormous Amount Of Fun, Actually, Working On That.
Fun
Player
Computer
Grown Men, He Told Himself, In Flat Contradiction Of Centuries Of Accumulated Evidence About The Way Grown Men Behave, Do Not Behave Like This.
Men
Way
Contradiction
Cyberspace Is - Or Can Be - A Good, Friendly And Egalitarian Place To Meet.
Good Friend
Friendly
Cyberspace
Who Is This God Person Anyway?
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
Hitchhikers Guide
Persons
"what's Up?" "i Don't Know," Said Marvin, "i've Never Been There."
Said
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
Marvin
All Through My Life I've Had This Strange Unaccountable Feeling That Something Was Going On In The World, Something Big, Even Sinister, And No One Would Tell Me What It Was." "no," Said The Old Man, "that's Just Perfectly Normal Paranoia. Everyone In The Universe Has That.
Men
Perfectly Normal
Feelings
The Only Thing Nicer Than A Phone That Didn't Ring All The Time (or Indeed At All) Was Six Phones That Didn't Ring All The Time (or Indeed At All).
Phones
Six
Rings
Rather Than Arriving Five Hours Late And Flustered, It Would Be Better All Around If He Were To Arrive Five Hours And A Few Extra Minutes Late, But Triumphantly In Command.
Arriving
Would Be
Hours
The Waiter Approached. 'would You Like To See The Menu?' He Said. 'or Would You Like To Meet The Dish Of The Day?' 'huh?' Said Ford. 'huh?' Said Arthur. 'huh?' Said Trillian. 'that’s Cool,' Said Zaphod. 'we'll Meet The Meat.
Meat
Arthur
Dishes
One Is Never Alone With A Rubber Duck.
Ducks
Rubber Ducks
Rubber
One Of The Major Problems Encountered In Time Travel Is Not That Of Accidentally Becoming Your Own Father Or Mother. There Is No Problem Involved In Becoming Your Own Father Or Mother That A Broadminded And Well-adjusted Family Can't Cope With.
Mother
Father
Becoming
Anything Invented Before Your Fifteenth Birthday Is The Order Of Nature. That's How It Should Be. Anything Invented Between Your Th And Th 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.
Order
Careers
Might
Time Is An Illusion. Lunchtime Doubly So.
Time
Philosophy
Humorous
Why' Is The Only Question That Bothers People Enough To Have An Entire Letter Of The Alphabet Named After It. The Alphabet Does Not Go 'a B C D What? When? How?' But It Does Go 'v W X Why? Z.
People
Doe
Letters
"what's So Unpleasant About Being Drunk?" "ask A Glass Of Water."
Glasses
Drunk
Water
The Ultimate Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything Is...42!
Life
Deep Thought
Answers
In Fact There Was Only One Species On The Planet More Intelligent Than Dolphins, And They Spent A Lot Of Their Time In Behavioural Research Laboratories Running Around Inside Wheels And Conduction Frighteningly Elegant And Subtle Experiments On Man. The Fact That Once Again Man Completely Misinterpreted This Relationship Was Entirely According To These Creatures’ Plans.
Running
Intelligent
Men
Was There A Reason Behind It? There Would Be No Point In Asking Zaphod, He Never Appeared To Have A Reason For Anything He Did At All: He Had Turned Unfathomability Into An Art Form. He Attacked Everything In Life With A Mixture Of Extraordinary Genius And Naive Incompetence And It Was Often Difficult To Tell Which Was Which.
Art
Would Be
Genius
Ford Prefect Suppressed A Little Giggle Of Evil Satisfaction, Realized That He Had No Reason To Suppress It, And Laughed Out Loud, A Wicked Laugh.
Evil
Laughing
Wicked
Dirk Was, For One Of The Few Times In A Life Of Exuberantly Prolific Loquacity, Wordless.
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.
Moving
Challenges
Finding Yourself
He Felt Like An Old Sponge Steeped In Paraffin And Left In The Sun To Dry.
Dry
Sun
Sponges
I Really Didn't Foresee The Internet. But Then, Neither Did The Computer Industry. Not That That Tells Us Very Much Of Course--the Computer Industry Didn't Even Foresee That The Century Was Going To End.
Computer
Internet
Century
The Encyclopedia Galactica Defines A Robot As A Mechanical Apparatus Designed To Do The Work Of A Man. The Marketing Division Of The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Defines A Robot As "your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Defines The Marketing Devision Of The Sirius Cybernetic Corporation As "a Bunch Of Mindless Jerks Who'll Be The First Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes.
Wall
Fun
Men
Six Pints Of Bitter, Said Ford Prefect. And Quickly Please, The World's About To End.
Alcohol
World
Six
That Young Girl Is One Of The Least Benightedly Unintelligent Organic Life Forms It Has Been My Profound Lack Of Pleasure Not To Be Able To Avoid Meeting.
Cute
Girl
Sarcastic
Anything That Thinks Logically Can Be Fooled By Something Else That Thinks At Least As Logically As It Does.
Thinking
Doe
Logic
Being Offended By Things Is The World's Big Hobby At The Moment. It's Almost Taken Over From Wearing Goatee Beards.
Taken
Hobbies
World
The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy Also Mentions Alcohol. It Says That The Best Drink In Existence Is The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, The Effect Of Which Is Like Having Your Brains Smashed Out With A Slice Of Lemon Wrapped Round A Large Gold Brick.
Alcohol
Brain
Gold
Would You Like Me To Go And Stick My Head In A Bucket Of Water?
Water
Buckets
Sticks
I Rarely End Up Where I Was Intending To Go, But Often I End Up Somewhere I Needed To Be.
Ends
Needed
I Think Fish Is Nice, But Then I Think That Rain Is Wet, So Who Am I To Judge?
Nice
Rain
Food
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.
Atheist
Faith Religion
Atheism
A Fragrant Breeze Wandered Up From The Quiet Sea, Trailed Along The Beach, And Drifted Back To The Sea Again, Wondering Where To Go Next. On A Mad Impulse It Went Up To The Beach Again. It Drifted Back To Sea.
Beach
Sea
Mad
It Takes An Awful Lot Of Time To Not Write A Book.
Book
Writing
Awful
[the Head Of Radio Three] Had Been Ensnared By The Music Director Of The College And A Professor Of Philosophy. These Two Were Busy Explaining To The Harassed Man That The Phrase "too Much Mozart" Was, Given Any Reasonable Definition Of Those Three Words, An Inherently Self-contradictory Expression, And That Any Sentence Which Contained Such A Phrase Would Be Thereby Rendered Meaningless And Could Not, Consequently, Be Advanced As Part Of An Argument In Favour Of Any Given Programme-scheduling Strategy.
Philosophy
College
Men
I'm Spending A Year Dead For Tax Reasons.
Money
Funny Life
Years
...and The Renewed Shock Had Nearly Made Him Spill His Drink. He Drained It Quickly Before Anything Serious Happened To It. He Then Had Another Quick One To Follow The First One Down And Check That It Was All Right.
Down And
Firsts
Serious
Any Man Who Can Hitch The Length And Breadth Of The Galaxy, Rough It, Slum It, Struggle Against Terrible Odds, Win Through, And Still Know Where His Towel Is Is Clearly A Man To Be Reckoned With.
Struggle
Winning
Men
My Own Strategy Is To Find A Car, Or The Nearest Equivalent, Which Looks As If It Knows Where It's Going And Follow It. I Rarely End Up Where I Was Intending To Go, But Often I End Up Somewhere I Needed To Be.
Car
Looks
Strategy
Many Men Of Course Became Extremely Rich, But This Was Perfectly Natural And Nothing To Be Ashamed Of Because No One Was Really Poor, At Least No One Worth Speaking Of.
Men
Perfectly Natural
Wealth
The Electric Monk Was A Labour-saving Device, Like A Dishwasher Or A Video Recorder... Electric Monks Believed Things For You, Thus Saving You What Was Becoming An Increasingly Onerous Task, That Of Believing All The Things The World Expected You To Believe.
Believe
Tasks
Video
There Are Some Oddities In The Perspective With Which We See The World.
Oddities
Perspective
World
It Is A Rare Mind Indeed That Can Render The Hitherto Non-existent Blindingly Obvious. The Cry 'i Could Have Thought Of That' Is A Very Popular And Misleading One, For The Fact Is That They Didn't, And A Very Significant And Revealing Fact It Is Too.
Mind
Facts
Cry
I've Never Understood All This Fuss People Make About The Dawn. I've Seen A Few And They're Never As Good As The Photographs, Which Have The Additional Advantage Of Being Things You Can Look At When You're In The Right Frame Of Mind, Which Is Usually Around Lunchtime.
People
Mind
Dawn
The Fact Is, I Don't Know Where My Ideas Come From. Nor Does Any Writer. The Only Real Answer Is To Drink Way Too Much Coffee And Buy Yourself A Desk That Doesn't Collapse When You Beat Your Head Against It.
Real
Coffee
Ideas
The Last Time Anybody Made A List Of The Top Hundred Character Attributes Of New Yorkers, Common Sense Snuck In At Number 79.
Character
Numbers
Common Sense
The Idea That Bill Gates (one Of The Founders Of Microsoft) 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, Led Them Into It In The First Place...
Funny
Humor
Technology
My Favorite Piece Of Information Is That Branwell Brontë, Brother Of Emily And Charlotte, Died Standing Up Leaning Against A Mantelpiece, In Order To Prove It Could Be Done. This Is Not Quite True, In Fact. My Absolute Favorite Piece Of Information Is The Fact That Young Sloths Are So Inept That They Frequently Grab Their Own Arms And Legs Instead Of Tree Limbs, And Fall Out Of Trees.
Brother
Fall
Order
There's Nothing Worse Than Sitting Down To Write A Novel And Saying, "well, Okay, I'm Going To Do Something Of High Artistic Worth." It's Funny.
Writing
Sitting Down
Artistic
Ghastly," Continued Marvin, "it All Is. Absolutely Ghastly. Just Don't Even Talk About It. Look At This Door," He Said, Stepping Through It. The Irony Circuits Cut In To His Voice Modulator As He Mimicked The Style Of The Sales Brochure. " 'all The Doors In His Spaceship Have A Cheerful And Sunny Disposition. It Is Their Pleasure To Open For You, And Their Satisfaction To Close Again With The Knowledge Of A Job Well Done.' " As The Door Closed Behind Them It Became Apparent That It Did Indeed Have A Satisfied Sighlike Quality To It. "hummmmmmmyummmmmmmah!" It Said.
Jobs
Cutting
Doors
There's Always A Moment When You Start To Fall Out Of Love, Whether It's With A Person Or An Idea Or A Cause, Even If It's One You Only Narrate To Yourself Years After The Event: A Tiny Thing, A Wrong Word, A False Note, Which Means That Things Can Never Be Quite The Same Again.
Falling In Love
Mean
Years
Trending Author
George Henry Lewes
Cynthia Nixon
Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Bruce Robinson
Suzanne Somers
Ray Harryhausen
Category
Information