I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

Douglas Adams—best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—was also a famously procrastination-prone writer who often worked under intense time pressure. The line “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by” is widely circulated as one of his characteristic, self-mocking jokes about missed due dates and the absurdity of creative work under schedules. It reflects the persona Adams cultivated in interviews and in his nonfiction writing: witty, rueful, and candid about the gap between intention and execution. The quote is commonly associated with his reflections on writing and productivity rather than with his science-fiction narratives.

The humor turns on a reversal: instead of valuing deadlines as motivating constraints, the speaker “loves” them precisely because they pass by unheard and unmet—reduced to a comic “whoosh.” Adams uses exaggeration to normalize procrastination and to puncture the moral seriousness that often surrounds productivity. Beneath the joke is a recognizable truth about creative labor: deadlines can feel arbitrary, external, and even surreal, especially when inspiration and drafting do not obey the calendar. The line also satirizes self-deception—treating failure to meet obligations as if it were a delightful spectacle—while inviting readers to laugh at their own similar habits.