# Quote — Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

> Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
>
> And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
>
> Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and so the idea was lost, seemingly for ever.
>
> This is her story.

- Author: [Douglas Adams](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams.md)
- Book: [So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Prologue) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/many-were-increasingly

## More from this book

> "I'm afraid I can't comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous Para-Causal Meteorological Phenomenon."
>
> "Can you tell us what that means?"
>
> "I'm not altogether sure. Let's be straight here. If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don't and I'm afraid we couldn't have that."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/im-afraid-i-cant.md)

> The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying "And another thing..." twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/the-storm-had.md)

> The sign said:
>
> Hold stick near centre 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 Wonko 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 packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/the-sign-said.md)