selected writings

Here I have compiled some short snippets of Douglas' writing that I hope you might enjoy. Whether or not it can be considered his personal best is, of course, arguable. But if we must categorize or label this selection in some way, we can at the very least call them 'liked by me.'

Quotes and shorter things

I wanted to be John Cleese and it took me some time to realise that the job was in fact taken.

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

I only knew that the Bealtes were the most exciting thing in the universe. It wasn't always an easy view to live with. First you had to fight the Stones fans, which was tricky because they fought dirty and had their knuckles nearer the ground.

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.

A man didn't understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren't there?"
(Richard Dawkins describing a story told by Douglas Adams)

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 part of the way the world works.
  2. Anything that's invented between when you're fiftenn and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
  3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

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

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 more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

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.

Further reading

If you're a fan of Douglas Adams, here are some authors who have influenced him, or who he admires that you may also enjoy.

  • Richard Dawkins. A fan of Adams work who became a good friend of his later in his life. His writing on evolution was also greatly admired by Douglas, and he describes Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker as "The Book That Changed Me."
  • P.G. Wodehouse. Described by Adams as "the greatest musician of the English language." His admiration comes from Wodehouse's ability to be above seriousnes, in the realms of "pure, creative playfulness." Adams also wrote the introduction for Wodehouse's unfinished Sunset at Blandings.
  • Kurt Vonnegut. Douglas claimed that it was fairly obvious that Vonnegut was a major influence on his work. The first version of the first chapter of the Hitchhiker's novel read as a Vonnegut novel, and so was thrown out and done over.
  • Along with Wodehouse and Vonnegut, Douglas lists Charles Dickes, Jane Austen and Ruth Rendell as his favourite authors.