Mostly Harmless Quotes

“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. Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy. Tricia”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Of course it isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or — what’s that strange thing you British play?” “Er, cricket? Self-loathing?” “Parliamentary democracy.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Arthur checked himself into a small motel on the outskirts of town, and sat glumly on the bed, which was damp, and flipped through the little information brochure, which was also damp. It said that the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“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.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“The Sandwich Maker would pass what he had made to his assistant who would then add a few slices of newcumber and fladish and a touch of splagberry sauce, and then apply the topmost layer of bread and cut the sandwich with a fourth and altogether plainer knife. It was not that these were not also skilful operations, but they were lesser skills to be performed by a dedicated apprentice who would one day, when the Sandwich Maker finally laid down his tools, take over from him. It was an exalted position and that apprentice, Drimple, was the envy of his fellows. There were those in the village who were happy chopping wood, those who were content carrying water, but to be the Sandwich Maker was very heaven.

And so the Sandwich Maker sang as he worked.

He was using the last of the year’s salted meat. It was a little past its best now, but still the rich savour of Perfectly Normal Beast meat was something unsurpassed in any of the Sandwich Maker’s previous experience. Next week it was anticipated that the Perfectly Normal Beasts would appear again for their regular migration, whereupon the whole village would once again be plunged into frenetic action: hunting the Beasts, killing perhaps six, maybe even seven dozen of the thousands that thundered past. Then the Beasts must be rapidly butchered and cleaned, with most of the meat salted to keep it through the winter months until the return migration in the spring, which would replenish their supplies.

The very best of the meat would be roasted straight away for the feast that marked the Autumn Passage. The celebrations would last for three days of sheer exuberance, dancing and stories that Old Thrashbarg would tell of how the hunt had gone, stories that he would have been busy sitting making up in his hut while the rest of the village was out doing the actual hunting.

And then the very, very best of the meat would be saved from the feast and delivered cold to the Sandwich Maker. And the Sandwich Maker would exercise on it the skills that he had brought to them from the gods, and make the exquisite Sandwiches of the Third Season, of which the whole village would partake before beginning, the next day, to prepare themselves for the rigours of the coming winter.

Today he was just making ordinary sandwiches, if such delicacies, so lovingly crafted, could ever be called ordinary. Today his assistant was away so the Sandwich Maker was applying his own garnish, which he was happy to do. He was happy with just about everything in fact.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she could fool herself she could fool anybody.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“I've been busy," said Ford, rather weakly. He staggered to his feet, brushing himself down. Then he thought, what the hell was he saying things weakly for? He had to get on top of this situation.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole galaxy of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just two things: the world he was born on and the woman he loved.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Anything that happens, happens.
Anything 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”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Era tempo, diceva l'oroscopo, di agire con positiva fermezza, prendere ardue decisioni, vedere cosa occorresse fare e farlo. Era tutto assai difficile per lui, ma, sapeva il Capo, nessuno aveva mai detto che fare cose difficili non fosse difficile.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Нищо не се движи по-бързо от светлината, с изключение може би на лошите новини, подчиняващи се на свои собствени закони.”
― Дъглас Адамс, Mostly Harmless

“Всички поне веднъж в живота си получават своя шанс, когато пред тях се разкриват големи възможности. Ако се случи така, че пропуснеш тази, която те интересува, след това всичко ти се струва неземно лесно.”
― Дъглас Адамс, Mostly Harmless

“— Мисля, че загубих един цял, съвсем друг живот.
— На всекиго се случва. Винаги, по всяко време, всяко просто решение, което вземаме, всеки наш дъх отваря някои врати и затваря много други. Повечето от тях дори не забелязваме. Други забелязваме. Изглежда така е станало във вашия случай.”
― Дъглас Адамс, Mostly Harmless

“Веднъж след като нещо наистина се случи в нещо толкова сложно и объркано като Вселената, само Кевин знае какъв ще бъде крайният резултат — където „Кевин“ е всяка случайна величина, която не знае нищо за нищо.
Това неутрино удари атом.
Атомът бе част от молекула. Молекулата бе част от ДНК. ДНК-то бе част от една генетична рецепта за растеж… и така нататък. Резултатът от всичко това беше, че на едно растение му поникна допълнително листенце. В Есекс. Или по-скоро в това, което след множество обсъждания и локални проблеми от геологическо естество щеше да стане Есекс.
Растението беше детелина. То разпространи тежестта си, или по скоро семената си, удивително ефективно и бързо се превърна в най-важния тип детелина за света.”
― Дъглас Адамс, Mostly Harmless

“Миналото да си стои където е, а настоящето да върви напред, към бъдещето.”
― Дъглас Адамс, Mostly Harmless

“Обикновеното унищожение не беше нещо по различно от това да се мъчиш да махнеш въздушен мехур изпод залепен тапет. Всичко унищожено неизменно се появяваше пак.”
― Дъглас Адамс, Mostly Harmless

“Todo lo que ocurre, ocurre. Todo lo que al ocurrir, origina otra cosa, hace que ocurra otra cosa más. Todo lo que al ocurrir, vuelve a originarse, ocurre de nuevo. Aunque todo ello no ocurre necesariamente en orden cronológico.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“He was also firmly and utterly opposed to all and any forms of cruelty to any animals whatsoever except geese.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“The trouble with trying to make the right accident happen is that it won't. That is not what "accident" means.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Tricia loved New York because loving New York was a good career move. It
was a good retail move, a good cuisine move, not a good taxi move or a great
quality of pavement move, but definitely a career move that ranked amongst
the highest and the best. Tricia was a TV anchor person, and New York
was where most of the world’s TV was anchored. Tricia’s TV anchoring had
been done exclusively in Britain up to that point: regional news, then breakfast
news, early evening news. She would have been called, if the language allowed,
a rapidly rising anchor, but... hey, this is television, what does it matter? She
was a rapidly rising anchor. She had what it took: great hair, a profound
understand- ing of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world
and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care. Everybody
has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one
you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy.
Tricia had only ever missed one opportunity. These days it didn’t even make
her tremble quite so much as it used to to think about it. She guessed it was
that bit of her that had gone dead.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Because of the various sensory protuberances with which the robot was festooned, it couldn’t maneuver inside the towel, and it just twitched back and forth without being able to turn and face its captor.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“No? How about now? Am I going backwards?'

For once the bird was perfectly still and steady.

'No,' said Random.

'Well I was in fact, I was moving backwards in time. Hmmm. Well I think we've sorted all that out now. If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions 13 to 22 that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place. I can easily not say words like «damn» if it offends you.'

'Say what you damn well like.'

'I will.'

'What the hell are you?' demanded Random.

'I am The Guide. In your universe I am your Guide. In fact I inhabit what is technically known as the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash which means . . . well, let me show you.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“It's just that in your case the consequences of not knowing any of this stuff are particularly terrible, but then, hey, that's just the way the cookie gets completely stomped on and obliterated.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“We like to be on one side, and look at the other.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“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.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“She was, after all, a mathematician and astrophysicist by training and a television presenter by experience, and what science she had forgotten over the years she was more than capable of making up by bluffing.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound: choosing the right bread for instance. The Sandwich Maker had spent many months in daily consultation and experiment with Grarp the baker and eventually they had between them created a loaf of exactly the consistency that was dense enough to slice thinly and neatly, while still being light, moist and having that fine nutty flavour which best enhanced the savour of roast Perfectly Normal Beast flesh.

There was also the geometry of the slice to be refined: the precise relationships between the width and height of the slice and also its thickness which would give the proper sense of bulk and weight to the finished sandwich: here again, lightness was a virtue, but so too were firmness, generosity and that promise of succulence and savour that is the hallmark of a truly intense sandwich experience.

The proper tools, of course, were crucial, and many were the days that the Sandwich Maker, when not engaged with the Baker at his oven, would spend with Strinder the Tool Maker, weighing and balancing knives, taking them to the forge and back again. Suppleness, strength, keenness of edge, length and balance were all enthusiastically debated, theories put forward, tested, refined, and many was the evening when the Sandwich Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker’s forge making slow sweeping movements through the air trying one knife after another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a fourth.

Three knives altogether were required. First there was the knife for the slicing of the bread: a firm, authoritative blade which imposed a clear and defining will on a loaf. Then there was the butter-spreading knife, which was a whippy little number but still with a firm backbone to it. Early versions had been a little too whippy, but now the combination of flexibility with a core of strength was exactly right to achieve the maximum smoothness and grace of spread.

The chief amongst the knives, of course, was the carving knife. This was the knife that would not merely impose its will on the medium through which it moved, as did the bread knife; it must work with it, be guided by the grain of the meat, to achieve slices of the most exquisite consistency and translucency, that would slide away in filmy folds from the main hunk of meat. The Sandwich Maker would then flip each sheet with a smooth flick of the wrist on to the beautifully proportioned lower bread slice, trim it with four deft strokes and then at last perform the magic that the children of the village so longed to gather round and watch with rapt attention and wonder. With just four more dexterous flips of the knife he would assemble the trimmings into a perfectly fitting jigsaw of pieces on top of the primary slice. For every sandwich the size and shape of the trimmings were different, but the Sandwich Maker would always effortlessly and without hesitation assemble them into a pattern which fitted perfectly. A second layer of meat and a second layer of trimmings, and the main act of creation would be accomplished.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

“He felt that the more time he spent away out in the Galaxy the more it seemed that the number of things he didn't know anything about actually increased.”
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless