When you blame others, you give up your power to change.
¶ (Attributed)
Quotations by ...
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
What I love the most about deadlines is the whooshing sound they make as they go by.
¶ (Attributed)
I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.
¶ Last Chance to See (1991)
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experiences of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
¶ Last Chance to See (1991)
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
¶ Mostly Harmless (1992)
See also Bernard Berenson.
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
¶ Mostly Harmless (1992)
"You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water."
¶ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 6
It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase "As pretty as an airport" appear.
¶ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.
¶ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
¶ The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
¶ Speech, Digital Biota 2 conference, Cambridge, UK (Sep 1998)
Full speech
About WIST
WIST is my collection of quotations I find meaningful, moving, amusing (intended or not), well-phrased, and/or to which I just say I "Wish I'd Said That." But just because I quote it here doesn't mean I actually agree with it. If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to
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