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Deadlines quote source?

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lkseitz .at. hiwaay

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Jul 22, 2004, 12:46:55 PM7/22/04
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You know the quote. It's all over the Internet:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as
they fly by.

My question is where did DNA write or say this? I have yet to find
any place that give the source for this quotation.

As prepayment for this information, here's a collection of quotes I
culled by Mr. Adams himself from Google Groups some time ago.


"Cyberspace is - or can be - a good, friendly and egalitarian place to
meet."
-- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 1 Dec 1993


"One of the delights of the net is that it subverts all other media."
-- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 27 Feb 1995

[This is edited as Mr. Adams seemed to mistype it. The original quote
was, "One of the delights of the net is that it subverts all other
the media."]


"That is a highly intelligent question and this is a stupid answer to
it."
-- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 6 Oct 1993


"What I don't enjoy is being picked on by smartasses. I guess it
comes with the territory, but I still don't like it, and this is me
saying so." -- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 1 Dec 1993


And my favorite:

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well,
including this, I suppose."
-- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 13 Sep 1998

--
lkseitz (Lee K. Seitz) .at. hiwaay @dot@ net
"One thing about paranoia: you'll never feel alone again."
-- Corry L. Smith, hsv.general, 25 Jun 2004

John Coxon

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Jul 23, 2004, 8:15:00 AM7/23/04
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In the two thousand and fourth year of Bob, Lee K. Seitz's voice said the
following, in wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so
low as to make a man weep:


> You know the quote. It's all over the Internet:
>
> I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as
> they fly by.
>
> My question is where did DNA write or say this? I have yet to find
> any place that give the source for this quotation.

It's in 'The Salmon Of Doubt', I think.

I don't know where it came from originally.


--
John Coxon

BREAKFST.EXE halted ... cereal port not responding!

E-mail: johnc...@virgin.net
Website: http://alphacentauri.8k.com
LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/~johncoxon
Missing footnotes: http://www.nut.house.cx/cgi-bin/nemowiki.pl?ISFN

Kåre Fiedler Christiansen

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Jul 23, 2004, 2:46:55 PM7/23/04
to
Lee K. Seitz wrote:

> You know the quote. It's all over the Internet:
>
> I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as
> they fly by.
>
> My question is where did DNA write or say this? I have yet to find
> any place that give the source for this quotation.

I'm afraid I can't help.
But I can say that although the quote is in Salmon of Doubt, the one
place I remember it in there, is in the epilogue by Richard Dawkins, and
just as much without source as anywhere else.
Also it is definately older. Oldest usenet posting with it is from 1st
of May 1989:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=7998%40fluke.COM

In this posting from 15th of November 1991

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Nov15.045548.5572%40zip.eecs.umich.edu

it says:

>\|__|| D|| \\ "I just love deadlines. I enjoy the sound they make
> \|__|| D | \ as they go flying by." Douglass Adams

When I heard Adams speak, he said "I love deadlines. I like the
whooshing sound they make as they fly by". The "whooshing" bit really
makes it for me.

which seems to make it from some public speech or something.

That seems to be supported by this posting from 1998:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=6fjq22%24feu%241%40herald.Mines.EDU

A previous thread from 2001 has also failed to recover the truth about
the quote:

http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=oK7R6.427518%24pg4.6132367%40amsnews03.chello.com

I'm afraid we won't get much further unless MJ Simpson has anything to say?

<snip>

> And my favorite:
>
> "Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well,
> including this, I suppose."
> -- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 13 Sep 1998

Ah - I remember that one. That was from the posting where he denied that
Oprah Winfrey would play Arthur Dent, wasn't it?

Best
Kåre

Gusty

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Jul 23, 2004, 9:45:19 AM7/23/04
to

"Kåre Fiedler Christiansen" <ne...@kaarefc.dk> wrote in message
news:2md4ouF...@uni-berlin.de...

> I'm afraid we won't get much further unless MJ Simpson has anything to
say?
>

I think that's probably the best hope.
In my mind it relates to the (very late) publication of SLATFATF and was
actually quoted by Sonny thingy.
Maybe he said it while lying on a Greek beach in Interlaken?

--
D.


MJ Simpson

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Jul 24, 2004, 3:58:34 PM7/24/04
to
> I'm afraid we won't get much further unless MJ Simpson has anything to say?

You'll find that it's the one quote in my book which is unattributed.

I'm as mystified as anyone.

MJS

Kåre Fiedler Christiansen

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Jul 27, 2004, 2:03:14 PM7/27/04
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MJ Simpson wrote:

I know, I looked it up. However, I thought you just might be wiser in
Real Life that your book is :-)

Best
Kåre

MJ Simpson

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Jul 27, 2004, 7:31:18 PM7/27/04
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I have passed this query on to Nigel Rees and the fans of Quote...Unquote

It is query 3048 on this page:

http://www1c.btwebworld.com/quote-unquote/p0000112.htm

MJS

Steve Marshall

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Jul 27, 2004, 10:02:05 PM7/27/04
to

"MJ Simpson" <mjs...@ntlworld.com> wrote

> I have passed this query on to Nigel Rees and the fans of Quote...Unquote
>
> It is query 3048 on this page:
>
> http://www1c.btwebworld.com/quote-unquote/p0000112.htm


I seem to recall it being in the South Bank Show program (???)

Steve M


hollis

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Jul 28, 2004, 9:22:00 AM7/28/04
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"Steve Marshall" <s...@atmosBlockA.plus.com> wrote in message
news:410708f1$0$24853$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...
It's a radio 4 program, the sort of thing you find in the 12.30 on Saturday
slot as far as I know.
But then I think rain is wet etc etc.
--
C.


----== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= 19 East/West-Coast Specialized Servers - Total Privacy via Encryption =---

Jason Knight longhair

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Jul 28, 2004, 11:28:08 AM7/28/04
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's funny... I was *sure* that I remembered reading this marvellous
quote in the Radio Scripts footnotes somewhere (but re-read them last
night and couldn't see reference anywhere... perhaps it's got lost in
the reprint!) *Now* I'm convinced I _heard_ Douglas say it in
interview somewhere, which leads me to believe that it must be on the
TV Series DVD extras since that's the only video / audio I own with
any interview on it. But I'll probably watch the whole damn thing to
find no reference anywhere!
Perhaps it was one of these cleverly-planted ideas (like the location
of the field Douglas lay in, or the rumour as to whom Marvin was based
on) that didn't actually turn out to have a proper source? Maybe, in
fact, somebody like Geoffrey Perkins originally said that Douglas had
said it, but it wasn't really Douglas' quote? Or perhaps Douglas had
said that he had said it, but hadn't originally said it after all? :-)
Thinking back, actually, it's quite possible that there's reference to
the quote (or perhaps even the first existence of the quote itself) in
the forward of one of the Dirk Gently books? There were several great
ideas in those that my bad memory has attributed to HHGG, or
vice-versa.

MJ Simpson

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Jul 28, 2004, 4:55:40 PM7/28/04
to
> > I seem to recall it being in the South Bank Show program (???)
> >
> It's a radio 4 program, the sort of thing you find in the 12.30 on Saturday
> slot as far as I know.

The problem here is that the South Bank Show (which is of course a TV
series made by LWT, not a BBC radio series) featured Adams in 1992.

And we have someone quoting this on the net in May 1989.

--
MJ Simpson

* Author of Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams
* Magrathea - the number one on-line source for news about Douglas
Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide -
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjs2000

Gusty

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Jul 28, 2004, 5:19:03 PM7/28/04
to
Reason not withstanding the universe continued unabated and MJ Simpson
spoke forth:

>> > I seem to recall it being in the South Bank Show program (???)
>> >
>> It's a radio 4 program, the sort of thing you find in the 12.30 on Saturday
>> slot as far as I know.
>
>The problem here is that the South Bank Show (which is of course a TV
>series made by LWT, not a BBC radio series) featured Adams in 1992.
>
>And we have someone quoting this on the net in May 1989.

Did Neil Gaiman ever do any TV appearances to promote Don't Panic?
I have this picture in my mind of somebody else quoting this about
Douglas rather than Douglas himself saying it.
I may be getting confused with something much later such as one of the
tribute shows.
Definitely pre-dates 1992 as he mentioned it at the MH promo I went to
in October of that year. His word then were along the lines of "you
know what they says about me? I love the sound, etc."
This was in response to a question on when his next book was due.

Unless someone close to him responds, I doubt we'll ever know.

--
D.

gusty
n. a person with more than one radio.

lkseitz .at. hiwaay

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Aug 2, 2004, 3:18:17 PM8/2/04
to
In article <2md4ouF...@uni-berlin.de>,
Kåre Fiedler Christiansen <ne...@kaarefc.dk> wrote:

>Lee K. Seitz wrote:
>
>> I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as
>> they fly by.
>>
>> My question is where did DNA write or say this?

>In this posting from 15th of November 1991


>
>http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Nov15.045548.5572%40zip.eecs.umich.edu
>
>it says:
>
> >\|__|| D|| \\ "I just love deadlines. I enjoy the sound they make
> > \|__|| D | \ as they go flying by." Douglass Adams
>
> When I heard Adams speak, he said "I love deadlines. I like the
> whooshing sound they make as they fly by". The "whooshing" bit really
> makes it for me.

Sorry I took a while to get around to checking all the links. The
person who wrote this is still a frequent poster in r.a.c.*. I'll see
what he recalls and let you guys know.

>> And my favorite:
>>
>> "Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well,
>> including this, I suppose."
>> -- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 13 Sep 1998
>
>Ah - I remember that one. That was from the posting where he denied that
>Oprah Winfrey would play Arthur Dent, wasn't it?

Jim Carrey, actually. (I had to look it up.)

--
lkseitz (Lee K. Seitz) .at. hiwaay @dot@ net

". . . the first rule of life is to have a good time . . . the second
rule of life is to hurt as few people as possible in the course of
doing so. There is no third rule." -- Brendan Gill

Kåre Fiedler Christiansen

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Aug 3, 2004, 1:18:53 PM8/3/04
to
Lee K. Seitz wrote:

<snip>

>>>And my favorite:
>>>
>>>"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well,
>>>including this, I suppose."
>>> -- Douglas Adams, alt.fan.douglas-adams, 13 Sep 1998
>>
>>Ah - I remember that one. That was from the posting where he denied that
>>Oprah Winfrey would play Arthur Dent, wasn't it?
>
>
> Jim Carrey, actually. (I had to look it up.)

Well, yes, of course, but wasn't it that posting that wen't on with "the
experiment" of denying Oprah Winfrey playing Arthur?

I'll have to look it up too, now.

Yes. Yes it is! It went like this at the end of the posting:

"I'd like to try a little experiment, and here it is.

I hereby categorically deny that the part of Arthur Dent is going to
be played by Oprah Winfrey.

Now. Let's see..."

For reference, see

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=905699100.11791.0.nnrp-01.9e981066%40news.demon.co.uk

Best
Kaare

lkseitz .at. hiwaay

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Aug 8, 2004, 11:01:14 PM8/8/04
to
In article <10gt4rp...@corp.supernews.com>, Lee K. Seitz <lkseitz> wrote:
>Sorry I took a while to get around to checking all the links. The
>person who wrote this is still a frequent poster in r.a.c.*. I'll see
>what he recalls and let you guys know.

Well, he answered my initial e-mail, but not the follow-up. Hopefully
he won't mind my quoting his e-mail.

Tom Galloway wrote:
}I recall the where exactly; the University of Michigan Student Union.
}The when is up in the air. I was first there in 9/88, but don't recall
}just when he spoke. The earliest saved Usenet reference is May 1, 1989
}in one of Jeff Meyer's .sig quote compliations, and by that time he
}and I frequently took each other's .sigs and added them to our own
}collection. So it's fairly likely he got it from me, which'd put it
}sometime between 9/88 and 4/89.
}
}tyg

--
lkseitz (Lee K. Seitz) .at. hiwaay @dot@ net

"The right to be heard does not autmatically include the right to be
taken seriously."
-- Hubert Humphrey

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