"Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss"
About this Quote
Adams takes the most romantic human fantasy and deflates it with a pratfall. Flying, in this framing, isn’t angels or engines or destiny; it’s an almost-successful accident. The joke works because it turns a triumph into a near-disaster and then treats that near-disaster as the actual technique. You don’t “rise,” you fail at falling. Gravity stays in charge; you just learn to slip its grip for a moment.
That’s classic Douglas Adams: the cosmic reduced to the bureaucratic, the sublime translated into instructions you could imagine on a poorly photocopied pamphlet. The line’s internal logic is absurd but oddly plausible, which is why it sticks. It borrows the tone of a practical lesson (“learning how to”) while smuggling in a philosophical wink: progress often looks like controlled failure. Mastery is less about conquering nature than about timing, attention, and an almost comic willingness to risk embarrassment.
The subtext is also a quiet jab at self-serious narratives of innovation. We like our breakthroughs to sound inevitable, morally clean, and hero-shaped. Adams suggests they’re more like slapstick: people hurling themselves at a problem until, by luck and repetition, they “miss” catastrophe. In the context of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s universe, where the cosmos is indifferent and humans are frequently clueless, that’s not just humor; it’s worldview. The line flatters our ingenuity while reminding us how thin the margin is between soaring and splattering.
That’s classic Douglas Adams: the cosmic reduced to the bureaucratic, the sublime translated into instructions you could imagine on a poorly photocopied pamphlet. The line’s internal logic is absurd but oddly plausible, which is why it sticks. It borrows the tone of a practical lesson (“learning how to”) while smuggling in a philosophical wink: progress often looks like controlled failure. Mastery is less about conquering nature than about timing, attention, and an almost comic willingness to risk embarrassment.
The subtext is also a quiet jab at self-serious narratives of innovation. We like our breakthroughs to sound inevitable, morally clean, and hero-shaped. Adams suggests they’re more like slapstick: people hurling themselves at a problem until, by luck and repetition, they “miss” catastrophe. In the context of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s universe, where the cosmos is indifferent and humans are frequently clueless, that’s not just humor; it’s worldview. The line flatters our ingenuity while reminding us how thin the margin is between soaring and splattering.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Quote attributed to Douglas Adams — "Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." (see Douglas Adams entry on Wikiquote) |
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