The Light Fantastic

9

The original quote here dates back to 1777, and is by Samuel Johnson (a well-known harmless drudge): “When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

Quite a few people have mistaken this quote for a reference to Douglas Adams. Of course Adams was simply parodying Johnson’s quote as well when he wrote (in Chapter 4 of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe):

“[…] when a recent edition of Playbeing magazine headlined an article with the words ‘When you are tired of Ursa Minor Beta you are tired of life’, the suicide rate there quadrupled overnight.”