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In Fact, A Very Similar Phrase Was Invented To Account For The Sudden Transition Of Wood, Metal, Plastic And Concrete Into An Explosive Condition, Which Was "nonlinear, Catastrophic Structural Exasperation," Or To Put It Another Way--as A Junior Cabinet Minister Did On Television The Following Night In A Phrase Which Was To Haunt The Rest Of His Career--the Check-in Desk Had Just Got "fundamentally Fed Up With Being Where It Was.

-Douglas Adams

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In Fact, A Very

Douglas Adams

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In Fact, A Very Similar Phrase Was Invented To Account For The Sudden Transition Of Wood, Metal, Plastic And Concrete Into An Explosive Condition, Which Was "nonlinear, Catastrophic Structural Exasperation," Or To Put It Another Way--as A Junior Cabinet Minister Did On Television The Following Night In A Phrase Which Was To Haunt The Rest Of His Career--the Check-in Desk Had Just Got "fundamentally Fed Up With Being Where It Was.

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Moving From Radio To Television, You Can Take Most Of The Words With You.

We Are Stuck With Technology When All We Really Want Is Just Stuff That Works. How Do You Recognize Something That Is Still Technology? A Good Clue Is If It Comes With A Manual.

It Is Folly To Say You Know What Is Happening To Other People. Only They Know, If They Exist. They Have Their Own Universes Of Their Own Eyes And Ears.

"what's So Unpleasant About Being Drunk?" "ask A Glass Of Water."

A Computer Chatted To Itself In Alarm As It Noticed An Airlock Open And Close Itself For No Apparent Reason. This Was Because Reason Was In Fact Out To Lunch.

Mr L Prosser Was, As They Say, Only Human. In Other Words He Was A Carbon-based Life Form Descended From An Ape. More Specifically He Was Forty, Fat And Shabby And Worked For The Local Council. Curiously Enough, Though He Didn't Know It, He Was Also A Direct Male-line Descendant Of Genghis Khan, Though Intervening Generations And Racial Mixing Had So Juggled His Genes That He Had No Discernible Mongoloid Characteristics, And The Only Vestiges Left In Mr L Prosser Of His Mighty Ancestry Were A Pronounced Stoutness About The Tum And A Predilection For Little Fur Hats.

The Last Time Anybody Made A List Of The Top Hundred Character Attributes Of New Yorkers, Common Sense Snuck In At Number 79.

What God Would Be Hanging Around Terminal Two Of Heathrow Airport Trying To Catch The 15:37 Flight To Oslo?

The Great Thing About Being The Only Species That Makes A Distinction Between Right And Wrong Is That We Can Make Up The Rules For Ourselves As We Go Along.

I Always Thought Something Was Fundamentally Wrong With The Universe

... The Truth Of The Matter Is, That Most English People Don't Know How To Make Tea Anymore Either, And Most People Drink Cheap Instant Coffee Instead, Which Is A Pity, And Gives Americans The Impression That The English Are Just Generally Clueless About Hot Stimulants.

Ha, But My Life Is A Box Of Wormgears.

Don't Believe Anything You Read On The Net. Except This. Well, Including This, I Suppose.

I Was Created To Fulfill A Function And I Failed In It. I Negated My Own Existence.

Here, For Whatever Reason, Is The World. And Here It Stays. With Me On It.

Humans Think They Are Smarter Than Dolphins Because We Build Cars And Buildings And Start Wars Etc., And All That Dolphins Do Is Swim In The Water, Eat Fish And Play Around. Dolphins Believe That They Are Smarter For Exactly The Same Reasons.

When You're Cruising Down The Road In The Fast Lane And You Lazily Sail Past A Few Hard-driving Cars And Are Feeling Pretty Pleased With Yourself And Then Accidently Change Down From Fourth To First Instead Of Third Thus Making Your Engine Leap Out Of Your Hood In A Rather Ugly Mess, It Tends To Throw You Off Stride In Much The Same Way That This Remark Threw Ford Prefect Off His.

He Was A Man Who Was Charged With The Work He Did In Life Because He Was Not One To Ask Questions — Not So Much On Account Of Any Natural Quality Of Discretion As Because He Simply Could Never Think Of Any Questions To Ask.

Democracy Is All About Not Electing The Wrong Man-eating Lizard.

And So The Universe Ended.

Ford... You're Turning Into A Penguin. Stop It.

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

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After A While He Played With The Pencil And The Paper Again And Was Delighted When He Discovered How To Make A Mark With The One On The Other. Various Noises Continued Outside, But He Didn't Know Whether They Were Real Or Not. He Then Talked To His Table For A Week To See How It Would React.

There Was A Point To This Story, But It Has Temporarily Escaped The Chronicler's Mind.

There's Nothing Worse Than Sitting Down To Write A Novel And Saying, "well, Okay, I'm Going To Do Something Of High Artistic Worth." It's Funny.

The Dew Has Fallen With A Particularly Sickening Thud This Morning.

Let Us Be Dreamers, Thinkers, Speculative Philosophers, Or As Our Spouses Would Have It: Idiots

This Must Be Thursday. I Never Could Get The Hang Of Thursdays.

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

There Is A Theory Which States That If Ever Anyone Discovers Exactly What The Universe Is For And Why It Is Here, It Will Instantly Disappear And Be Replaced By Something Even More Bizarre And Inexplicable.there Is Another Theory Which States That This Has Already Happened.

'these Things Will Become Clear To You,' Said The Old Man Gently, 'at Least,' He Added With Slight Doubt In His Voice, 'clearer Than They Are At The Moment.'

Very Deep. You Should Send That In To The Reader's Digest. They've Got A Page For People Like You.

'the Difficulty With This Conversation,' Said Arthur After A Sort Of Pondering Look Had Crawled Slowly Across His Face Like A Mountaineer Negotiating A Tricky Outcrop, 'is That It's Very Different From Most Of The Ones I've Had Of Late. Which, As I Explained, Have Mostly Been With Trees.'

We Talked About How Easy It Was To Make The Mistake Of Anthropomorphizing Animals, And Projecting Our Own Feelings And Perceptions On To Them, Where They Were Inappropriate And Didn't Fit. We Simply Had No Idea What It Was Like Being An Extremely Large Lizard, And Neither For That Matter Did The Lizard, Because It Was Not Self-conscious About Being An Extremely Large Lizard, It Just Got On With The Business Of Being One. To React With Revulsion To Its Behavior Was To Make The Mistake Of Applying Criteria That Are Only Appropriate To The Business Of Being Human.

Space Is Really Big-really Big.

Your God Person Puts An Apple Tree In The Middle Of A Garden And Says, Do What You Like, Guys, Oh, But Don't Eat The Apple. Surprise Surprise, They Eat It And He Leaps Out From Behind A Bush Shouting "gotcha". It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference If They Hadn't Eaten It.' 'why Not?' 'because If You're Dealing With Somebody Who Has The Sort Of Mentality Which Likes Leaving Hats On The Pavement With Bricks Under Them You Know Perfectly Well They Won't Give Up. They'll Get You In The End.

There's Always A Moment When You Start To Fall Out Of Love, Whether It's With A Person Or An Idea Or A Cause, Even If It's One You Only Narrate To Yourself Years After The Event: A Tiny Thing, A Wrong Word, A False Note, Which Means That Things Can Never Be Quite The Same Again.

Falling In Love

The Longest And Most Destructive Party Ever Held Is Now Into Its Fourth Generation And Still No One Shows Any Signs Of Leaving. Somebody Did Once Look At His Watch, But That Was Eleven Years Ago Now, And There Has Been No Follow Up.

Having Not Said Anything The First Time, It Was Somehow Even More Difficult To Broach The Subject The Second Time Around.

Deep In The Fundamental Heart Of Mind And Universe There Is A Reason.

A Beach House Isn't Just Real Estate. It's A State Of Mind.

I Really Didn't Foresee The Internet. But Then, Neither Did The Computer Industry. Not That That Tells Us Very Much Of Course--the Computer Industry Didn't Even Foresee That The Century Was Going To End.

I Think A Nerd Is A Person Who Uses The Telephone To Talk To Other People About Telephones. And A Computer Nerd Therefore Is Somebody Who Uses A Computer In Order To Use A Computer.

Mark Carwardine's Role, Essentially, Was To Be The One Who Knew What He Was Talking About. My Role, And One For Which I Was Entirely Qualified, Was To Be An Extremely Ignorant Non-zoologist To Whom Everything That Happened Would Come As A Complete Surprise.

I Tend To Get Very Suspicious Of Anything That Thinks It's Art While It's Being Created.

You May Not Instantly See Why I Bring The Subject Up, But That Is Because My Mind Works So Phenomenally Fast, And I Am At A Rough Estimate Thirty Billion Times More Intelligent Than You. Let Me Give You An Example. Think Of A Number, Any Number.” “er, Five,” Said The Mattress. “wrong,” Said Marvin. “you See?

I Don't Believe It. Prove It To Me And I Still Won't Believe It.

Shee, You Guys Are So Unhip It's A Wonder Your Bums Don't Fall Off.

I Begged Her, 'please Don't Leave Me Stranded In The Middle Of Some Primitive Zarking Forest With No Medical Help And A Head Injury. I Could Be In Serious Trouble And So Could She.'" "what Did She Say?" "she Hit Me On The Head With The Rock Again," Ford Responded Curtly. "i Think I Can Confirm That Was My Daughter." "sweet Kid." "you Have To Get To Know Her," Said Arthur. "she Eases Up, Does She?" "no, But You Get A Better Sense Of When To Duck.

The Available Worlds Looked Pretty Grim. They Had Little To Offer Him Because He Had Little To Offer Them. He Had Been Extremely Chastened To Realize That Although He Originally Came From A World Which Had Cars And Computers And Ballet And Armagnac, He Didn't, By Himself, Know How Any Of It Worked. He Couldn't Do It. Left To His Own Devices He Couldn't Build A Toaster. He Could Just About Make A Sandwich And That Was It.

Simple. I Got Very Bored And Depressed, So I Went And Plugged Myself In To Its External Computer Feed. I Talked To The Computer At Great Length And Explained My View Of The Universe To It," Said Marvin. "and What Happened?" Pressed Ford. "it Committed Suicide," Said Marvin And Stalked Off Back To The Heart Of Gold.

Time Is The Worst Place, So To Speak, To Get Lost In, As Arthur Dent Could Testify, Having Been Lost In Both Time And Space A Good Deal. At Least Being Lost In Space Kept You Busy.

Woking (vb.) To Enter The Kitchen With The Precise Determination To Perform Something Only To Forget What It Is Just Before You Do It.

Being Literate As A Writer Is Good Craft, Is Knowing Your Job, Is Knowing How To Use Your Tools Properly And Not To Damage The Tools As You Use Them.

Will You Stop Counting!' Snarled Zaphod. 'yes,' Said Ford Prefect, 'in Three Minutes And Thirty-five Seconds.

The Simple Truth Is That Interstellar Distances Will Not Fit Into The Human Imagination.

Was There A Reason Behind It? There Would Be No Point In Asking Zaphod, He Never Appeared To Have A Reason For Anything He Did At All: He Had Turned Unfathomability Into An Art Form. He Attacked Everything In Life With A Mixture Of Extraordinary Genius And Naive Incompetence And It Was Often Difficult To Tell Which Was Which.

It Was None The Less A Perfectly Ordinary Horse, Such As Convergent Evolution Has Produced In Many Of The Places That Life Is To Be Found. They Have Always Understood A Great Deal More Than They Let On. It Is Difficult To Be Sat On All Day, Every Day, By Some Other Creature, Without Forming An Opinion About Them.

Even A Manically Depressed Robot Is Better To Talk To Than Nobody.

Everybody Has Their Moment Of Great Opportunity In Life. If You Happen To Miss The One You Care About, Then Everything Else Becomes Eerily Easy.

I Teleported Home Last Night With Ron And Sid And Meg Ron Stole Meggy's Heart Away And I Got Sidney's Leg.

I'd Far Rather Be Happy Than Right Any Day.

How Do You Feel?" He Asked Him. "like A Military Academy," Said Arthur. "bits Of Me Keep On Passing Out.

Alltami (n.) The Ancient Art Of Being Able To Balance The Hot And Cold Shower Taps.

Cyberspace Is - Or Can Be - A Good, Friendly And Egalitarian Place To Meet.

The Argument Goes Something Like This: "i Refuse To Prove That I Exist," Says God, "for Proof Denies Faith, And Without Faith I Am Nothing.

Sherlock Holmes Observed That Once You Have Eliminated The Impossible Then Whatever Remains, However Improbable, Must Be The Answer. I, However, Do Not Like To Eliminate The Impossible.

And So The Problem Remained; Lots Of The People Were Mean, And Most Of Them Were Miserable, Even The Ones With Digital Watches.

If They Don’t Keep Exercising Their Lips, He Thought, Their Brains Start Working.

It Is Most Gratifying," It Said, "that Your Enthusiasm For Our Planet Continues Unabated, And So We Would Like To Assure You That The Guided Missiles Currently Converging With Your Ship Are Part Of A Special Service We Extend To All Of Our Most Enthusiastic Clients, And The Fully Armed Nuclear Warheads Are Of Course Merely A Courtesy Detail. We Look Forward To Your Custom In Future Lives ... Thank You.

Unfortunately This Electric Monk Had Developed A Fault, And Had Started To Believe All Kinds Of Things, More Or Less At Random. It Was Even Beginning To Believe Things They'd Have Difficulty Believing In Salt Lake City.

Stotting Is Jumping Upward With All Four Legs Simultaneously. My Advice: Do Not Die Until You've Seen A Large Black Poodle Stotting In The Snow.

Did I Do Anything Wrong Today," He Said, "or Has The World Always Been Like This And I've Been Too Wrapped Up In Myself To Notice?

There Are Two Things You Should Remember When Dealing With Parallel Universes. One, They're Not Really Parallel, And Two, They're Not Really Universes

A Fragrant Breeze Wandered Up From The Quiet Sea, Trailed Along The Beach, And Drifted Back To The Sea Again, Wondering Where To Go Next. On A Mad Impulse It Went Up To The Beach Again. It Drifted Back To Sea.

Arthur Shook His Head And Sat Down. He Looked Up. “i Thought You Must Be Dead …” He Said Simply. “so Did I For A While,” Said Ford, “and Then I Decided I Was A Lemon For A Couple Of Weeks. I Kept Myself Amused All That Time Jumping In And Out Of A Gin And Tonic.

People Who Need To Bully You Are The Easiest To Push Around.

Far Out In The Uncharted Backwaters Of The Unfashionable End Of The Western Spiral Arm Of The Galaxy Lies A Small Unregarded Yellow Sun. Orbiting This At A Distance Of Roughly Ninety-two Million Miles Is An Utterly Insignificant Little Blue Green Planet Whose Ape-descended Life Forms Are So Amazingly Primitive That They Still Think Digital Watches Are A Pretty Neat Idea.

The Problem Is, Or Rather One Of The Problems, For There Are Many, A Sizeable Proportion Of Which Are Continually Clogging Up The Civil, Commercial, And Criminal Courts In All Areas Of The Galaxy, And Especially, Where Possible, The More Corrupt Ones, This. The Previous Sentence Makes Sense. That Is Not The Problem. This Is: Change. Read It Through Again And You'll Get It.

But The Plans Were On Display…” “on Display? I Eventually Had To Go Down To The Cellar To Find Them.” “that’s The Display Department.” “with A Flashlight.” “ah, Well, The Lights Had Probably Gone.” “so Had The Stairs.” “but Look, You Found The Notice, Didn’t You?” “yes,” Said Arthur, “yes I Did. It Was On Display In The Bottom Of A Locked Filing Cabinet Stuck In A Disused Lavatory With A Sign On The Door Saying ‘beware Of The Leopard.

Exactly!" Said Deep Thought. "so Once You Do Know What The Question Actually Is, You'll Know What The Answer Means.

Words Used Carelessly, As If They Did Not Matter In Any Serious Way, Often Allowed Otherwise Well-guarded Truths To Seep Through.

I Can See We're In For A Fabulous Evening's Apocalypse.

Space Is Big. Really Big. You Just Won't Believe How Vastly, Hugely, Mind-bogglingly Big It Is. I Mean, You May Think It's A Long Way Down The Road To The Chemist, But That's Just Peanuts To Space.

It Is A Well-known Fact That Those People Who Must Want To Rule People Are, Ipso Facto, Those Least Suited To Do It... Anyone Who Is Capable Of Getting Themselves Made President Should On No Account Be Allowed To Do The Job.

There Is A Feeling Which Persists In England That Making A Sandwich Interesting, Attractive, Or In Any Way Pleasant To Eat Is Something Sinful That Only Foreigners Do.

Could Be. I’m A Pretty Dangerous Dude When I’m Cornered.” “yeah,” Said The Voice From Under The Table, “you Go To Pieces So Fast People Get Hit By The Shrapnel.

R Is A Velocity Of Measure, Defined As A Reasonable Speed Of Travel That Is Consistent With Health, Mental Well-being, And Not Being More Than, Say, Five Minutes Late. It Is Therefore Clearly As Almost Infinite Variable Figure According To Circumstances, Since The First Two Factors Vary Not Only With Speed As An Absolute, But Also With Awareness Of The Third Factor. Unless Handled With Tranquility, This Equation Can Result In Considerable Stress, Ulcers, And Even Death.

We Have Normality. I Repeat, We Have Normality. Anything You Still Can't Cope With Is Therefore Your Own Problem.

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

A Theory Of The Universe That States: If Anyone Finds Out What The Universe Is For, It Will Disappear And Be Replaced By Something More Bizarrely Inexplicable.

The World Wide Web Is The Only Thing I Know Of Whose Shortened Form Takes Three Times Longer To Say Than What It's Short For.

Why' Is The Only Question That Bothers People Enough To Have An Entire Letter Of The Alphabet Named After It. The Alphabet Does Not Go 'a B C D What? When? How?' But It Does Go 'v W X Why? Z.

He Has Personality Problems Beyond The Dreams Of Analysts.

So The Hours Are Pretty Good Then?' He Resumed. The Vogon Stared Down At Him As Sluggish Thoughts Moiled Around In The Murky Depths. Yeah,' He Said, 'but Now You Come To Mention It, Most Of The Actual Minutes Are Pretty Lousy.

It Is Known That There Are An Infinite Number Of Worlds, Simply Because There Is An Infinite Amount Of Space For Them To Be In. However, Not Every One Of Them Is Inhabited. Therefore, There Must Be A Finite Number Of Inhabited Worlds. Any Finite Number Divided By Infinity Is As Near To Nothing As Makes No Odds, So The Average Population Of All The Planets In The Universe Can Be Said To Be Zero. From This It Follows That The Population Of The Whole Universe Is Also Zero, And That Any People You May Meet From Time To Time Are Merely The Products Of A Deranged Imagination.

And Then I Decided I Was A Lemon For A Couple Of Weeks.

Human Beings, Who Are Almost Unique In Having The Ability To Learn From The Experience Of Others, Are Also Remarkable For Their Apparent Disinclination To Do So.

"i Refuse To Prove That I Exist" Says God, "for Proof Denies Faith, And Without Faith, I Am Nothing." "oh," Says Man, "but The Babel Fish Is A Dead Give-away, Isn't It? It Proves You Exist, And So Therefore You Don't. Q.e.d." "oh, I Hadn't Thought Of That," Says God, Who Promptly Vanishes In A Puff Of Logic.

So What Do We Do If We Get Bitten By Something Deadly?' I Asked. He Looked At Me As If I Were Stupid. 'you Die, Of Course. That's What Deadly Means.

Plenty Of People Did Not Care For Him Much, But Then There Is A Huge Difference Between Disliking Somebody - Maybe Even Disliking Them A Lot - And Actually Shooting Them, Strangling Them, Dragging Them Through The Fields And Setting Their House On Fire.

We Demand Rigidly Defined Areas Of Doubt And Uncertainty!

Every Country Is Like A Particular Type Of Person. America Is Like A Belligerent, Adolescent Boy, Canada Is Like An Intelligent, 35 Year Old Woman. Australia Is Like Jack Nicholson.

To Boldly Split Infinitives That No Man Had Split Before.

A Hole Had Just Appeared In The Galaxy. It Was Exactly A Nothingth Of A Second Long, A Nothingth Of An Inch Wide, And Quite A Lot Of Million Light Years From End To End. As It Closed Up [...] Two Hundred And Thirty-nine Thousand Lightly Fried Eggs Fell Out Of It...materializing In A Large Woobly Heap On The Famine-struck Land Of Poghril In The Pansel System. The Whole Poghril Tribe Had Died Out From Famine Except For One Last Man Who Died Of Cholesterol Poisoning Some Weeks Later.

The Electric Monk Was A Labour-saving Device, Like A Dishwasher Or A Video Recorder... Electric Monks Believed Things For You, Thus Saving You What Was Becoming An Increasingly Onerous Task, That Of Believing All The Things The World Expected You To Believe.

Solutions Nearly Always Come From The Direction You Least Expect, Which Means There's No Point Trying To Look In That Direction Because It Won't Be Coming From There.

Nobleness Was One Word For Making A Fuss About The Trivial Inevitabilities Of Life, But There Were Others.

And For All The Richest And Most Successful Merchants Life Inevitably Became Rather Dull And Niggly, And They Began To Imagine That This Was Therefore The Fault Of The Worlds They'd Settled On.

Why?' Is Always The Most Difficult Question To Answer. You Know Where You Are When Someone Asks You 'what's The Time?' Or 'when Was The Battle Of 1066?' Or 'how Do These Seatbelts Work That Go Tight When You Slam The Brakes On, Daddy?' The Answers Are Easy And Are, Respectively, 'seven-thirty In The Evening,' 'ten-fifteen In The Morning,' And 'don't Ask Stupid Questions.

Difficult Questions

What I Need... Is A Strong Drink And A Peer Group.

When The Girl Sitting At The Next Table Looked Away From A Moment, Dirk Leaned Over And Took Her Coffee. He Knew That He Was Perfectly Safe Doing This Because She Would Simply Not Be Able To Believe That This Had Happened.

It's The Story Of My Life. You See, The Quality Of Any Advice Anybody Has To Offer Has To Be Judged Against The Quality Of Life They Actually Lead. Now, As You Look Through This Document You'll See That I've Underlined All The Major Decisions I Ever Made To Make The Stand Out. They're All Indexed And Cross-referenced. See? All I Can Suggest Is That If You Take Decisions That Are Exactly Opposite To The Sort Of Decisions That I've Taken, Then Maybe You Won't Finish Up At The End Of Your Life" --she Paused, And Filled Her Lungs For A Good Should--"in A Smelly Old Cave Like This!

Numbers Written On Restaurant Bills Within The Confines Of Restaurants Do Not Follow The Same Mathematical Laws As Numbers Written On Any Other Pieces Of Paper In Any Other Parts Of The Universe. This Single Fact Took The Scientific World By Storm.

I Love Deadlines. I Like The Whooshing Noise They Make As They Go By.

There Is An Art To The Business Of Making Sandwiches Which It Is Given To Few Ever To Find The Time To Explore In Depth. It Is A Simple Task, But The Opportunities For Satisfaction Are Many And Profound.

Life! Don't Talk To Me About Life!

Put Away Your Worries, The World Is A Good And Perfect Place. It Is In Fact Very Easy.

He Almost Danced To The Fridge, Found The Three Least Hairy Things In It, Put Them On A Plate And Watched Them Intently For Two Minutes. Since They Made No Attempt To Move Within That Time He Called Them Breakfast And Ate Them. Between Them They Killed A Virulent Space Disease He'd Picked Up Without Knowing It In The Flargathon Gas Swamps A Few Days Earlier, Which Otherwise Would Have Killed Off Half The Population Of The Western Hemisphere, Blinded The Other Half, And Driven Everyone Else Psychotic And Sterile, So The Earth Was Lucky There.

A Nerd Is Someone Who Uses A Telephone To Talk To Other People About Telephones.

There Are Two Things In Particular That It [the Computer Industry] Failed To Foresee: One Was The Coming Of The Internet(...); The Other Was The Fact That The Century Would End.

For As Long As He Could Remember, He’d Suffered From A Vague Nagging Feeling Of Being Not All There.

Nothing Travels Faster Than The Speed Of Light, With The Possible Exception Of Bad News, Which Obeys Its Own Special Laws.

The Little Waiter's Eyebrows Wandered About His Forehead In Confusion.

Ok," He Said, "i Don't Like To Disturb You At What I Know Must Be A Difficult And Distressing Time For You, But I Need To Know First Of All If You Actually Realize That This Is A Difficult And Distressing Time For You.

Obviously Somebody Had Been Appallingly Incompetent And He Hoped To God It Wasn't Him.

You Just Come Along With Me And Have A Good Time. The Galaxy's A Fun Place. You'll Need To Have This Fish In Your Ear.

It Is A Mistake To Think You Can Solve Any Major Problems Just With Potatoes.

...they Discovered Only A Small Asteroid Inhabited By A Solitary Old Man Who Claimed Repeatedly That Nothing Was True, Though He Was Later Discovered To Be Lying.

Dennis Hutch Had Stepped Up Into The Top Seat When Its Founder Had Died Of A Lethal Overdose Of Brick Wall, Taken While Under The Influence Of A Ferrari And A Bottle Of Tequila.

The Car Shot Forward Straight Into The Circle Of Light, And Suddenly Arthur Had A Fairly Clear Idea Of What Infinity Looked Like. It Wasn’t Infinity In Fact. Infinity Itself Looks Flat And Uninteresting. Looking Up Into The Night Sky Is Looking Into Infinity—distance Is Incomprehensible And Therefore Meaningless. The Chamber Into Which The Aircar Emerged Was Anything But Infinite, It Was Just Very Very Very Big, So Big That It Gave The Impression Of Infinity Far Better Than Infinity Itself.

The Quality Of Any Advice Anybody Has To Offer Has To Be Judged Against The Quality Of Life They Actually Lead.

All You Really Need To Know For The Moment Is That The Universe Is A Lot More Complicated Than You Might Think, Even If You Start From A Position Of Thinking It's Pretty Damn Complicated In The First Place.

One Always Overcompensates For Disabilities. I'm Thinking Of Having My Entire Body Surgically Removed.

The Film Project Has Been “twenty Years Of Constipation,” And He Likens The Hollywood Process To “trying To Grill A Steak By Having A Succession Of People Coming Into The Room And Breathing On It.”

No. No Games. He Wanted Her And Didn't Care Who Knew It. He Definitely And Absolutely Wanted Her, Longed For Her, Wanted To Do More Things Than There Were Names For With Her.

One Of The Most Important Things You Learn From The Internet Is That There Is No 'them' Out There. It’s Just An Awful Lot Of 'us.'

Many Men Of Course Became Extremely Rich, But This Was Perfectly Natural And Nothing To Be Ashamed Of Because No One Was Really Poor, At Least No One Worth Speaking Of.

Perfectly Natural

I May Not Have Gone Where I Intended To Go, But I Think I Have Ended Up Where I Intended To Be.

And As He Drove On, The Rainclouds Dragged Down The Sky After Him, For, Though He Did Not Know It, Rob Mckenna Was A Rain God. All He Knew Was That His Working Days Were Miserable And He Had A Succession Of Lousy Holidays. All The Clouds Knew Was That They Loved Him And Wanted To Be Near Him, To Cherish Him, And To Water Him.

Anything Invented Before Your Fifteenth Birthday Is The Order Of Nature. That's How It Should Be. Anything Invented Between Your Th And Th Birthday Is New And Exciting, And You Might Get A Career There. Anything Invented After That Day, However, Is Against Nature And Should Be Prohibited.

Now The World Has Gone To Bed, Darkness Won't Engulf My Head, I Can See By Infrared, How I Hate The Night. Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, Try To Count Electric Sheep, Sweet Dream Wishes You Can Keep, How I Hate The Night. -marvin

As A Result Of All This Hardship, Dirt, Thirst, And Wombats, You Would Expect Australians To Be A Dour Lot. Instead, They Are Genial, Jolly, Cheerful, And Always Willing To Share A Kind Word With A Stranger, Unless They Are An American.

I Rarely End Up Where I Was Intending To Go, But Often I End Up Somewhere I Needed To Be.

Curiously Enough, The Only Thing That Went Through The Mind Of The Bowl Of Petunias As It Fell Was Oh No, Not Again. Many People Have Speculated That If We Knew Exactly Why The Bowl Of Petunias Had Thought That We Would Know A Lot More About The Nature Of The Universe Than We Do Now.

And We’ll Be Saying A Big Hello To All Intelligent Life Forms Everywhere … And To Everyone Else Out There, The Secret Is To Bang The Rocks Together, Guys.

In Cases Of Major Discrepancy Its Always Reality Thats Got It Wrong ... Reality Is Frequently Inaccurate.

He Felt That His Whole Life Was Some Kind Of Dream And He Sometimes Wondered Whose It Was And Whether They Were Enjoying It.

I Love To Keep Poking And Prodding At It. I’ve Thought About It So Much Over The Years That That Fascination Is Bound To Spill Over Into My Writing.

The Gorillas Are Not Yet Sufficiently Advanced In Evolutionary Terms To Have Discovered The Benefits Of Passports, Currency-declaration Forms, And Official Bribery, And Therefore Tend To Wander Backward And Forward Across The Border As And When Their Beastly, Primitive Whim Takes Them.

It Was His Subconscious Which Told Him This - That Infuriating Part Of A Person's Brain Which Never Responds To Interrogation, Merely Gives Little Meaningful Nudges And Then Sits Humming Quietly To Itself, Saying Nothing.

If We See You Smoking We Will Assume You Are On Fire And Take Appropriate Action.

Cigarette Smoke

I Don't Really Have Any Advice, Other Than To Say It's The Most Appallingly Difficult Thing I've Ever Tried To Do And I Wish I Had A Better Idea Of How To Do It. In My Experience What You End Up With Is The By-product Of Your Failure To Achieve What You Set Out To Do. It May Turn Out Ok, But It Wasn't What You Meant And You've No Idea How You Got There.

Trillian Had Come To Suspect That The Main Reason [zaphood] Had Had Such A Wild And Successful Life Was That He Never Really Understood The Significance Of Anything He Did.

The Technology Involved In Making Anything Invisible Is So Infinitely Complex That Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Billion, Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Million, Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Thousand, Nine Hundred And Ninety-nine Times Out Of A Trillion It Is Much Simpler And More Effective Just To Take The Thing Away And Do Without It.

My Universe Is My Eyes And My Ears. Anything Else Is Hearsay.

In Many Of The More Relaxed Civilizations On The Outer Eastern Rim Of The Galaxy, The Hitch-hiker's Guide Has Already Supplanted The Great Encyclopaedia Galactica As The Standard Repository Of All Knowledge And Wisdom, For Though It Has Many Omissions And Contains Much That Is Apocryphal, Or At Least Wildly Inaccurate, It Scores Over The Older, More Pedestrian Work In Two Important Respects. First, It Is Slightly Cheaper; And Secondly It Has The Words Don't Panic Inscribed In Large Friendly Letters On Its Cover.

I Am Terribly Proud Of-i Was Born In Cambridge In 1952 And My Initials Are Dna!

This Man Is The Bee's Knees, Arthur, He Is The Wasp's Nipples. He Is, I Would Go So Far As To Say, The Entire Set Of Erogenous Zones Of Every Major Flying Insect Of The Western World.

The Usual People Tried To Claim Responsibility. First The Ira , Then The Plo And The Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels Rushed Out A Statement To The Effect That The Situation Was Completely Under Control, That It Was A One In A Million Chance, That There Was Hardly Any Radioactive Leakage At All, And That The Site Of The Explosion Would Make A Nice Location For A Day Out With The Kids And A Picnic, Before Finally Having To Admit That It Wasn't Actually Anything To Do With Them At All.

A Computer Terminal Is Not Some Clunky Old Television With A Typewriter In Front Of It. It Is An Interface Where The Mind And Body Can Connect With The Universe And Move Bits Of It About.

Don't Spin Your Wheels And Stress. Take A Deep Breath, Center Yourself And Make A Plan.

Take A Deep Breath

Space Is Big. You Just Won't Believe How Vastly, Hugely, Mind-bogglingly Big It Is.

Yes. They Are The Words That Finally Turned Me Into The Hermit I Have Now Become. It Was Quite Sudden. I Saw Them, And I Knew What I Had To Do." The Sign Read: "hold Stick Near Center 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 Package Of Toothpicks, Was No Longer A Civilization In Which I Could Live And Stay Sane.

The Moment At Which Two People, Approaching From Opposite Ends Of A Long Passageway, Recognize Each Other And Immediately Pretend They Haven T. This Is To Avoid The Ghastly Embarrassment Of Having To Continue Recognizing Each Other The Whole Length Of The Corridor.

A Life That Is Burdened With Expectations Is A Heavy Life. Its Fruit Is Sorrow And Disappointment.

Beethoven Tells You What It's Like To Be Beethoven And Mozart Tells You What It's Like To Be Human. Bach Tells You What It's Like To Be The Universe.

There Was A Terribly Ghastly Silence. There Was A Terribly Ghastly Noise. There Was A Terribly Ghastly Silence.

We All Like To Congregate At Boundary Conditions. Where Land Meets Water. Where Earth Meets Air. Where Bodies Meet Mind. Where Space Meets Time. We Like To Be On One Side, And Look At The Other.

I Don't Want To Die Now!" He Yelled. "i've Still Got A Headache! I Don't Want To Go To Heaven With A Headache, I'd Be All Cross And Wouldn't Enjoy It!

Religion ... Has Certain Ideas At The Heart Of It Which We Call Sacred Or Holy Or Whatever. What It Means Is, 'here Is An Idea Or A Notion That You're Not Allowed To Say Anything Bad About; You're Just Not. Why Not? Because You're Just Not. If Someone Votes For A Party That You Don't Agree With, You're Free To Argue About It As Much As You Like; Everybody Will Have An Argument But Nobody Feels Aggrieved By It. ... But On The Other Hand, If Somebody Says 'i Mustn't Move A Light Switch On A Saturday', You Say 'i Respect That'.

I Don’t Know What I’m Looking For.” “what Not?” “because … Because … I Think It Might Be Because If I Knew I Wouldn’t Be Able To Look For Them.

We Are Now Cruising At A Level Of Two To The Power Of Twenty-five Thousand To One Against And Falling, And We Will Be Restoring Normality Just As Soon As We Are Sure What Is Normal Anyway.

Yes, I Think I Use The Term Radical Rather Loosely, Just For Emphasis. If You Describe Yourself As Atheist Some People Will Say, Don't You Mean Agnostic? I Have To Reply That I Really Do Mean Atheist, I Really Do Not Believe That There Is A God; In Fact, I Am Convinced That There Is Not A God (a Subtle Difference). I See Not A Shred Of Evidence To Suggest That There Is One...etc., Etc. It's Easier To Say That I Am A Radical Atheist, Just To Signal That I Really Mean It, Have Thought About It A Great Deal And That It's An Opinion I Hold Seriously.

Any Man Who Can Hitch The Length And Breadth Of The Galaxy, Rough It, Slum It, Struggle Against Terrible Odds, Win Through, And Still Know Where His Towel Is Is Clearly A Man To Be Reckoned With.

He Stood Up Straight And Looked The World Squarely In The Fields And Hills. To Add Weight To His Words He Stuck The Rabbit Bone In His Hair. He Spread His Arm Out Wide. "i Will Go Mad!" He Annouced.

Driving A Porsche In London Is Like Bringing A Ming Vase To A Football Game.

Anyone Who Is Capable Of Getting Themselves Made President Should On No Account Be Allowed To Do The Job.

The Bowler Approached The Wicket At A Lope, A Trot, And Then A Run. He Suddenly Exploded In A Flurry Of Arms And Legs, Out Of Which Flew A Ball.

Joo Janta 200 Super-chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses Have Been Specially Designed To Help People Develop A Relaxed Attitude To Danger. At The First Hint Of Trouble, They Turn Totally Black And Thus Prevent You From Seeing Anything That Might Alarm You.

Just Believe Everything I Tell You, And It Will All Be Very, Very Simple.' Ah, Well, I'm Not Sure I Believe That.

He Picked Up The Letter Q And Hurled It Into A Distant Privet Bush Where It Hit A Young Rabbit. The Rabbit Hurtled Off In Terror And Didn’t Stop Till It Was Set Upon And Eaten By A Fox Which Choked On One Of Its Bones And Died On The Bank Of A Stream Which Subsequently Washed It Away. During The Following Weeks Ford Perfect Swallowed His Pride And Struck Up A Relationship With A Girl Who Had Been A Personnel Officer On Golgafrincham, And He Was Terribly Upset When She Suddenly Passed Away As A Result Of Drinking Water From A Pool That Had Been Polluted By The Body Of A Dead Fox.

In The Stillness, A Fly Would Not Have Dared Clear It's Throat.

Oh Dear,' Says God, 'i Hadn't Thought Of That,' And Promptly Vanishes In A Puff Of Logic.

Would You Like Me To Go And Stick My Head In A Bucket Of Water?

Dirk Was, For One Of The Few Times In A Life Of Exuberantly Prolific Loquacity, Wordless.

Please Relax," Said The Voice Pleasantly, Like A Stewardess In An Airliner With Only One Wing And Two Engines One Of Which Is On Fire, "you Are Perfectly Safe.

It's Good To Leave Your Room Super-messy When You're Away. Whoever Tries To Break Into Your Room Will Thought It Has Already Been Ransacked.

The Macintosh May Only Have 10% Of The Market, But It Is Clearly The Top 10%.

I'm So Great Even I Get Tongue-tied Talking To Myself.

You Are Zaphod Beeblebrox?' 'yeah,' Said Zaphod, 'but Don't Shout It Out Or They'll All Want One.' 'the Zaphod Beeblebrox?' 'no, Just A Zaphod Beeblebrox, Didn't You Hear I Come In Six Packs?' 'but Sir,' It Squealed, 'i Just Heard On The Sub-ether Radio Report. It Said You Were Dead...' 'yeah, That's Right, I Just Haven't Stopped Moving Yet.

Who Is This God Person Anyway?

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

Hitchhikers Guide

Being Offended By Things Is The World's Big Hobby At The Moment. It's Almost Taken Over From Wearing Goatee Beards.

I'd Take The Awe Of Understanding Over The Awe Of Ignorance Any Day.

I Refuse To Answer That Question On The Grounds That I Don't Know The Answer

The Seat Received Him In A Loose And Distant Kind Of Way, Like An Aunt Who Disapproves Of The Last Fifteen Years Of Your Life And Will Therefore Furnish You With A Basic Sherry, But Refuses To Catch Your Eye.

The Only Moral It Is Possible To Draw From This Story Is That One Should Never Throw The Q Letter Into A Privet Bush, But Unfortunately There Are Times When It Is Unavoidable.

To Summarize The Summary Of The Summary: People Are A Problem.

The Mere Thought Hadn't Even Begun To Speculate About The Merest Possibility Of Crossing My Mind.

I Think Media Are At Their Most Interesting Before Anybody's Thought Of Calling Them Art, When People Still Think They're Just A Load Of Junk.

If Somebody Thinks They're A Hedgehog, Presumably You Just Give 'em A Mirror And A Few Pictures Of Hedgehogs And Tell Them To Sort It Out For Themselves.

He Attacked Everything In Life With A Mix Of Extraordinary Genius And Naive Incompetence, And It Was Often Difficult To Tell Which Was Which.

I Seem To Be Having Tremendous Difficulty With My Life-style

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