Adams Quotes

“Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart.

{Letter to John Adams, from Monticello, 15 August 1820}”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Odysseus...sleeps sound beside Calypso and when he wakes thinks only of Penelope.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“All right," said Ford. "How would you react if I said that I'm not from Guildford at all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?"
Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way.
"I don't know," he said, taking a pull of beer. "Why, do you think it's the sort of thing you're likely to say?"
Ford gave up. It really wasn't worth bothering at the moment, what with the world being about to end.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“hornier than a bunny on ecstasy”
― Kyle Adams, Dirty Play

“At that moment the dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside filtered through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox, through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccuping over the whiskey Ford had eventually bought him.
Arthur choked on his beer, leaped to his feet.
"What's that?" he yelped.
"Don't worry," said Ford, "they haven't started yet."
"Thank God for that," said Arthur, and relaxed.
"It's probably just your house being knocked down," said Ford, downing his last pint.
"What?" shouted Arthur. Suddenly Ford's spell was broken. Arthur looked wildly around him and ran to the window.
"My God, they are! They're knocking my house down. What the hell am I doing in the pub, Ford?"
"It hardly makes any difference at this stage," said Ford, "let them have their fun.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“We shall convince France and the world, that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and a sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, and interest.”
― John Adams

“...the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected {George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson}, not a one had professed a belief in Christianity...

When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it.... There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God's laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity... Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a professing Christian...

[Sermon by Reverend Bill Wilson (Episcopal) in October 1831, as published in the Albany Daily Advertiser the same month it was made]”
― Bird Wilson

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt”
― Andy K.J. Cragg, A Curation of Curious Characters: A Short Story Collection