Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

— Douglas Adams

Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through.

— Douglas Adams

Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do.

— Douglas Adams

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

— Douglas Adams

Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do." The sign read:"Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."" It seemed to me," said Wonk the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.

— Douglas Adams

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!

— Douglas Adams

You come to me for advice, but you can't cope with anything you don't recognize. Hamm. So we'll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh Well, business as usual, I suppose.

— Douglas Adams

You know because you’ve been it, and I know because I’m dead, and it gives one such a wonderfully uncluttered perspective.

— Douglas Adams

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

— Douglas Adams

You mean you've been in this same set of rooms here for... two hundred years?' murmured Richard. 'You'd think someone would notice, or think it was odd.'' Oh, that's one of the delights of the older Cambridge colleges,' said Reg, 'everyone is so discreet. If we all went around mentioning what was odd about each other we'd be here till Christmas.

— Douglas Adams