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She Had What It Took: Great Hair, A Profound Understanding Of Strategic Lip Gloss, The Intelligence To Understand The World And A Tiny Secret Interior Deadness Which Meant She Didn’t Care.

-Douglas Adams

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She Had What It

Douglas Adams

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She Had What It Took: Great Hair, A Profound Understanding Of Strategic Lip Gloss, The Intelligence To Understand The World And A Tiny Secret Interior Deadness Which Meant She Didn’t Care.

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I Think You Ought To Know I'm Feeling Very Depressed.

We’ll Meet The Meat.

In Those Days Spirits Were Brave, The Stakes Were High, Men Were Real Men, Women Were Real Women And Small Furry Creatures From Alpha Centauri Were Real Small Furry Creatures From Alpha Centauri.

Fiordland, A Vast Tract Of Mountainous Terrain That Occupies The South-west Corner Of South Island, New Zealand, Is One Of The Most Astounding Pieces Of Land Anywhere On God's Earth, And One's First Impulse, Standing On A Cliff Top Surveying It All, Is Simply To Burst Into Spontaneous Applause.

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

Zaphod Did Not Want To Tangle With Them And, Deciding That Just As Discretion Is The Better Part Of Valor, So Was Cowardice Is The Better Part Of Discretion, He Valiantly Hid Himself In A Closet.

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

Goosnargh," Said Ford Prefect, Which Was A Special Betelgeusian Word He Used When He Knew He Should Say Something But Didn't Know What It Should Be.

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.

Despite The Fact That An Indonesian Island Chicken Has Probably Had A Much More Natural Life Than One Raised On A Battery Farm In England, People Who Wouldn't Think Twice About Buying Something Oven-ready Become Much More Upset About A Chicken That They've Been On A Boat With, So There Is Probably Buried In The Western Psyche A Deep Taboo About Eating Anything You've Been Introduced To Socially.

And Then, Just When You Think That You Have Experienced All The Wonders That This World Has To Offer, You Round A Peak And Suddenly Think You're Doing The Whole Thing Over Again, But This Time On Drugs.

Space Is Unimaginably Big.

I Think Fish Is Nice, But Then I Think That Rain Is Wet, So Who Am I To Judge?

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.

Ahenny (adj.) - The Way People Stand When Examining Other People's Bookshelves.

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.

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.

What Was The Self-sacrifice?" I Jettisoned Half Of A Much-loved And I Think Irreplaceable Pair Of Shoes." Why Was That Self-sacrifice?" Because They Were Mine!" Said Ford, Crossly. I Think We Have Different Value Systems." Well Mine's Better.

These Creatures You Call Mice, You See, They Are Not Quite As They Appear. They Are Merely The Protrusion Into Our Dimension Of Vastly Hyperintelligent Pandimensional Beings.

Yes, It Is True That Sometimes Unusually Intelligent And Sensitive Children Can Appear To Be Stupid. But Stupid Children Can Sometimes Appear To Be Stupid As Well. I Think That's Something You Might Have To Consider.

Aboyne (vb.) To Beat An Expert At A Game Of Skill By Playing So Appallingly That None Of His Clever Tactics Or Strategies Are Of Any Use To Him.

[the Head Of Radio Three] Had Been Ensnared By The Music Director Of The College And A Professor Of Philosophy. These Two Were Busy Explaining To The Harassed Man That The Phrase "too Much Mozart" Was, Given Any Reasonable Definition Of Those Three Words, An Inherently Self-contradictory Expression, And That Any Sentence Which Contained Such A Phrase Would Be Thereby Rendered Meaningless And Could Not, Consequently, Be Advanced As Part Of An Argument In Favour Of Any Given Programme-scheduling Strategy.

If Life Is Going To Exist In A Universe Of This Size, Then The One Thing It Cannot Afford To Have Is A Sense Of Proportion.

Thought Provoking

The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy Also Mentions Alcohol. It Says That The Best Drink In Existence Is The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, The Effect Of Which Is Like Having Your Brains Smashed Out With A Slice Of Lemon Wrapped Round A Large Gold Brick.

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

I Wrote An Ad For Apple Computer: "macintosh - We Might Not Get Everything Right, But At Least We Knew The Century Was Going To End".

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

The Last Ever Dolphin Message Was Misinterpreted As A Surprisingly Sophisticated Attempt To Do A Double-backwards-somersault Through A Hoop Whilst Whistling The 'star Spangled Banner', But In Fact The Message Was This: So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

Funny, How Just When You Think Life Can’t Possibly Get Any Worse It Suddenly Does.

"would You Like To See The Menu?" He Said. "or Would You Like To Meet The Dish Of The Day?" [...] "good Evening," It Lowed And Sat Back Heavily On Its Haunches, "i Am The Main Dish Of The Day. May I Interest You In Parts Of My Body?"

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.

It Startled Him Even More When Just After He Was Awarded The Galactic Institute's Prize For Extreme Cleverness He Got Lynched By A Rampaging Mob Of Respectable Physicists Who Had Finally Realized That The One Thing They Really Couldn't Stand Was A Smart-ass.

Bypasses Are Devices That Allow Some People To Dash From Point A To Point B Very Fast While Other People Dash From Point B To Point A Very Fast.

Finding Your Path

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 Story Goes That I First Had The Idea For The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy While Lying Drunk In A Field In Innsbruck.

Why Should I Want To Make Anything Up? Life's Bad Enough As It Is Without Wanting To Invent Any More Of It.

There Are Some People You Like Immediately, Some Whom You Think You Might Learn To Like In The Fullness Of Time, And Some That You Simply Want To Push Away From You With A Sharp Stick.

And Wow! Hey! What's This Thing Coming Towards Me Very Fast? Very Very Fast. So Big And Flat And Round, It Needs A Big Wide Sounding Word Like... Ow... Ound... Round... Ground! That's It! That's A Good Name - Ground! I Wonder If It Will Be Friends With Me?

People Always Make This Totally Artificial Distinction Between What Is Commercial And What Is Good. They Quote That Maxim "nobody Ever Lost Money Underestimating The Public's Taste" And I Think That's Very Wrongheaded. I Like To Believe The Audience Is Actually Intelligent, Because It's Made Up Of Other People Like Yourself.

Why Are People Born? Why Do They Die? Why Do They Want To Spend So Much Of The Intervening Time Wearing Digital Watches?

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!

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.

The Ultimate Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything Is...42!

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.

He Turned Slowly Like A Fridge Door Opening.

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

He Had A Tremendous Propensity For Getting Lost When Driving. This Was Largely Because Of His Method Of “zen” Navigation, Which Was Simply To Find Any Car That Looked As If It Knew Where It Was Going And Follow It. The Results Were More Often Surprising Than Successful, But He Felt It Was Worth It For The Sake Of The Few Occasions When It Was Both.

Please Call Me Eddie If It Will Help You To Relax.

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

We Notice Things That Don't Work. We Don't Notice Things That Do. We Notice Computers, We Don't Notice Pennies. We Notice E-book Readers, We Don't Notice Books.

The Reason Why So Many Sects Hang Around Airports Looking For Converts: They Know That People There Are At Their Most Vulnerable And Perplexed, And Ready To Accept Any Kind Of Guidance.

It Can Hardly Be A Coincidence That No Language On Earth Has Ever Produced The Expression, 'as Pretty As An Airport.

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

Reality Is Hopelessly Inaccurate.

The Storm Had Now Definitely Abated, And What Thunder There Was Now Grumbled Over More Distant Hills, Like A Man Saying 'and Another Thing...' Twenty Minutes After Admitting He'd Lost The Argument.

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

Arthur Felt Happy. He Was Terribly Pleased That The Day Was For Once Working Out So Much According To Plan. Only Twenty Minutes Ago He Had Decided He Would Go Mad, And Now Here He Was Already Chasing A Chesterfield Sofa Across The Fields Of Prehistoric Earth.

Most Of The Time Spent Wrestling With Technologies That Don't Quite Work Yet Is Just Not Worth It For End Users, However Much Fun It Is For Nerds.

What I Mean Is That If You Really Want To Understand Something, The Best Way Is To Try And Explain It To Someone Else. That Forces You To Sort It Out In Your Mind. And The More Slow And Dim-witted Your Pupil, The More You Have To Break Things Down Into More And More Simple Ideas. And That's Really The Essence Of Programming. By The Time You've Sorted Out A Complicated Idea Into Little Steps That Even A Stupid Machine Can Deal With, You've Learned Something About It Yourself... The Teacher Usually Learns More Than The Pupils. Isn't That True?

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

The Point Is, You See," Said Ford, "that There Is No Point In Driving Yourself Mad Trying To Stop Yourself Going Mad. You Might Just As Well Give In And Save Your Sanity For Later.

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

If You Really Want To Understand Something, The Best Way Is To Try And Explain It To Someone Else.

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.

Don't Blame You," Said Marvin And Counted Five Hundred And Ninety-seven Thousand Million Sheep Before Falling Asleep Again A Second Later.

There Is No Point In Using The Word 'impossible' To Describe Something That Has Clearly Happened.

Anything That Thinks Logically Can Be Fooled By Something Else That Thinks At Least As Logically As It Does.

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.

Really, The Moment You Have Any Idea, The Second Thought That Enters Your Mind After The Original Idea Is, "what Is This? Is It A Book, Is It A Movie, Is It A This, Is It A That, Is It A Short Story, Is It A Breakfast Cereal?" Really, From That Moment, Your Decision About What Kind Of Thing It Is Then Determines How It Develops.

'totally Mad,' He Said, 'utter Nonsense. But We'll Do It Because It's Brilliant Nonsense.'

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

Perhaps I'm Old And Tired, But I Always Think That The Chances Of Finding Out What Really Is Going On Are So Absurdly Remote That The Only Thing To Do Is To Say Hang The Sense Of It And Just Keep Yourself Occupied.

I Have Always Been Absurdly, Ridiculously Tall. To Give You An Idea- When We Went On School Trips To Interesting And Improving Places, The Form-master Wouldn't Say "meet Under The Clock Tower," Or "meet Under The War Memorial," But "meet Under Adams.

Insofar As She Recognized At All That She Was Dreaming, She Realized That She Must Be Exploring Her Subconscious Mind. She Had Heard It Said That Humans Are Supposed Only To Use About A Tenth Of Their Brains, And That No One Was Really Clear What The Other Nine Tenths Were For, But She Had Certainly Never Heard It Suggested That They Were Used For Storing Penguins.

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.

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

Anything Invented After You’re Thirty-five Is Against The Natural Order Of Things

If It Looks Like A Duck, And Quacks Like A Duck, We Have At Least To Consider The Possibility That We Have A Small Aquatic Bird Of The Family Anatidae On Our Hands.

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.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide Has Not Been An Opera. It Has However Been A Tapestry, If You Count A Woven Bath Towel As A Tapestry.

Life,” Said Marvin Dolefully, “loathe It Or Ignore It, You Can’t Like It.

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

The Kakapo Is An Extremely Fat Bird. A Good-sized Adult Will Weigh About Six Or Seven Pounds, And Its Wings Are Just About Good For Waggling A Bit If It Thinks It's About To Trip Over Something - But Flying Is Out Of The Question. Sadly, However, It Seems That Not Only Has The Kakapo Forgotten How To Fly, But It Has Forgotten That It Has Forgotten How To Fly. Apparently A Seriously Worried Kakapo Will Sometimes Run Up A Tree And Jump Out Of It, Whereupon It Flies Like A Brick And Lands In A Graceless Heap On The Ground.

My Doctor Says That I Have A Malformed Public-duty Gland And A Natural Deficiency In Moral Fibre And That I Am Therefore Excused From Saving Universes.

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.

Looking Up Into The Night Sky Is Looking Into Infinity — Distance Is Incomprehensible And Therefore Meaningless

For Seven And A Half Million Years, Deep Thought Computed And Calculated, And In The End Announced That The Answer Was In Fact Forty-two - And So Another, Even Bigger, Computer Had To Be Built To Find Out What The Actual Question Was.

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 Am A Private Detective. I Am Paid To Be Inquisitive And Presumptuous.

The Idea That Bill Gates (one Of The Founders Of Microsoft) Has Appeared Like A Knight In Shining Armour To Lead All Customers Out Of A Mire Of Technological Chaos Neatly Ignores The Fact That It Was He, By Peddling Second Rate Technology, Led Them Into It In The First Place...

... 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.

I Always Thought Something Was Fundamentally Wrong With The Universe

He Has Personality Problems Beyond The Dreams Of Analysts.

So, The World Is Fine. We Don’t Have To Save The World—the World Is Big Enough To Look After Itself. What We Have To Be Concerned About, Is Whether Or Not The World We Live In, Will Be Capable Of Sustaining Us In It. That’s What We Need To Think About.

God's Final Message To His Creation: 'we Apologize For The Inconvenience.

Come On,” He Droned, “i’ve Been Ordered To Take You Down To The Bridge. Here I Am, Brain The Size Of A Planet And They Ask Me To Take You Down To The Bridge. Call That Job Satisfaction? ’cos I Don’t.” He Turned And Walked Back To The Hated Door. “er, Excuse Me,” Said Ford Following After Him, “which Government Owns This Ship?” Marvin Ignored Him. “you Watch This Door,” He Muttered, “it’s About To Open Again. I Can Tell By The Intolerable Air Of Smugness It Suddenly Generates.

The Fact That We Live At The Bottom Of A Deep Gravity Well, On The Surface Of A Gas Covered Planet Going Around A Nuclear Fireball 90 Million Miles Away And Think This To Be Normal Is Obviously Some Indication Of How Skewed Our Perspective Tends To Be.

In The Old Days, Writers Used To Sit In Front Of A Typewriter And Stare Out Of The Window. Nowadays, Because Of The Marvels Of Convergent Technology, The Thing You Type On And The Window You Stare Out Of Are Now The Same Thing.

In The Center Lay The Exploded Carcass Of A Lonely Sperm Whale That Hadn't Lived Long Enough To Be Disappointed With Its Lot.

Assumptions Are What We Don't Know We Are Making

So You Can Imagine What Happens When A Mainland Species Gets Introduced To An Island. It Would Be Like Introducing Al Capone, Genghis Khan And Rupert Murdoch Into The Isle Of Wight - The Locals Wouldn't Stand A Chance.

Conceited Little Mega-puppy.

Ford Looked At Him Severely. And No Sneaky Knocking Down Mr Dent's House Whilst He's Away, Alright?" He Said. The Mere Thought," Growled Mr Prosser, "hadn't Even Begun To Speculate," He Continued, Settling Himself Back, "about The Merest Possibility Of Crossing My Mind.

It's Not The Fall That Kills You; It's The Sudden Stop At The End.

Rather Than Arriving Five Hours Late And Flustered, It Would Be Better All Around If He Were To Arrive Five Hours And A Few Extra Minutes Late, But Triumphantly In Command.

I Say What It Occurs To Me To Say When I Think I Hear People Say Things. More I Cannot Say.

There Are Some Oddities In The Perspective With Which We See The World.

The Big Corporations Are Suddenly Taking Notice Of The Web, And Their Reactions Have Been Slow. Even The Computer Industry Failed To See The Importance Of The Internet, But That's Not Saying Much. Let's Face It, The Computer Industry Failed To See That The Century Would End.

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.

Very Strange People, Physicists - In My Experience The Ones Who Aren't Dead Are In Some Way Very Ill.

I'm 48, Which Is A Bit Of A Shock To Me. Why Only Last Year I Thought I Was A Precocious Young Thing!

There Is No Problem So Complicated That You Can't Find A Very Simple Answer To It If You Look At It Right.

Presidents Don't Have Power. Their Job Is To Draw Attention Away From It.

I Have Terrible Periods Of Lack Of Confidence. I Just Don't Believe I Can Do It And No Evidence To The Contrary Will Sway Me From That View.

The Books People Are Writing Today, They're Too Long. You Get A Little Bit Of Plot, And Then Pages And Pages Of Creative Writing. They Teach Classes In How To Do This. They Should Teach Classes In How To Stop!

I Think The Idea Of Art Kills Creativity.

All Opinions Are Not Equal. Some Are A Very Great Deal More Robust, Sophisticated And Well Supported In Logic And Argument Than Others.

Well The Hours Are Good...' ... 'but Now You Come To Mention It, Most Of The Actual Minutes Are Pretty Lousy.

What A Wonderfully Exciting Cough,' Said The Little Man, Quite Startled By It, 'do You Mind If I Join You?' And With That He Launched Into The Most Extraordinary And Spectacular Fit Of Coughing Which Caught Arthur So Much By Surprise That He Started To Choke Violently, Discovered He Was Already Doing It And Got Thoroughly Confused.

You Can't Possibly Be A Scientist If You Mind People Thinking That You're A Fool.

You Live And Learn. At Any Rate, You Live.

Alone Of All The Races On Earth, They Seem To Be Free From The 'grass Is Greener On The Other Side Of The Fence' Syndrome, And Roundly Proclaim That Australia Is, In Fact, The Other Side Of That Fence.

He Had Extracted Himself From The Cambridge One-way System By The Usual Method, Which Involved Going Round And Round It Faster And Faster Until He Achieved A Sort Of Escape Velocity And Flew Off At A Tangent In A Random Direction, Which He Was Now Trying To Identify And Correct For.

For Millions Of Years, On Average, One Species Became Extinct Every Century.... We Are Now Heaving More Than A Thousand Different Species Of Animals And Plants Off The Planet Every Year.

He Was Constantly Reminded Of How Startlingly Different A Place The World Was When Viewed From A Point Only Three Feet To The Left.

Believe Me, It Is A Great Deal Better To Find Cast-iron Proof That You're Innocent Than To Languish In A Cell Hoping That The Police---who Already Think You're Guilty---will Find It For You.

That Young Girl Is One Of The Least Benightedly Unintelligent Organic Life Forms It Has Been My Profound Lack Of Pleasure Not To Be Able To Avoid Meeting.

And So The Universe Ended.

I Think That Growing Up In A Crowded Continent Like Europe With An Awful Lot Of Competing Claims, Ideas, Cultures, And Systems Of Thought We Have, Perforce, Developed A More Sophisticated Notion Of What The Word Freedom Means Than I See Much Evidence Of In America. To Be Frank, It Sometimes Seems That The American Idea Of Freedom Has More To Do With My Freedom To Do What I Want Than Your Freedom To Do What You Want. I Think That In Europe We're Probably Better At Understanding How To Balance Those Competing Claims, Though Not A Lot.

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.

‎if You Ever Find You Need Help Again, You Know, If You're In Trouble, Need A Hand Out Of A Corner..." "yeah?" "please Don't Hesitate To Get Lost.

In An Infinite Universe Anything Can Happen.

Anything Can Happen

You Cannot See What I See Because You See What You See. You Cannot Know What I Know Because You Know What You Know. What I See And What I Know Cannot Be Added To What You See And What You Know Because They Are Not Of The Same Kind. Neither Can It Replace What You See And What You Know, Because That Would Be To Replace You Yourself." "hang On, Can I Write This Down?" Said Arthur, Excitedly Fumbling In His Pocket For A Pencil.

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.

Much To His Annoyance, A Thought Popped Into His Mind. It Was Very Clear And Very Distinct, And He Had Now Come To Recognize These Thoughts For What They Were. His Instinct Was To Resist Them.

I've Never Understood All This Fuss People Make About The Dawn. I've Seen A Few And They're Never As Good As The Photographs, Which Have The Additional Advantage Of Being Things You Can Look At When You're In The Right Frame Of Mind, Which Is Usually Around Lunchtime.

I Don't Like The Idea Of Missionaries. In Fact, The Whole Business Fills Me With Fear And Alarm. I Don't Believe In God, Or At Least Not In The One We've Invented For Ourselves In England To Fulfill Our Peculiarly English Needs, And Certainly Not In The Ones They've Invented In America Who Supply Their Servants With Toupees, Television Stations And, Most Importantly, Toll-free Telephone Numbers. I Wish That People Who Did Believe In Such Things Would Keep Them To Themselves And Not Export Them To The Developing World.

What Do You Get If You Multiply Six By Nine?" "six By Nine. Forty Two." "that's It. That's All There Is." "i Always Thought Something Was Fundamentally Wrong With The Universe

The Switch Had Two Settings. You Could Either Turn It To Auto, In Which Case The Awning Lowered Itself Whenever The Sun Came Out, Or You Could Set It To Manuel [sic], In Which Case, We Assumed, A Small, Incompetent Spanish Waiter Came And Did It For You.

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.

My Favorite Piece Of Information Is That Branwell Brontë, Brother Of Emily And Charlotte, Died Standing Up Leaning Against A Mantelpiece, In Order To Prove It Could Be Done. This Is Not Quite True, In Fact. My Absolute Favorite Piece Of Information Is The Fact That Young Sloths Are So Inept That They Frequently Grab Their Own Arms And Legs Instead Of Tree Limbs, And Fall Out Of Trees.

I Am Fascinated By Religion. (that's A Completely Different Thing From Believing In It!) It Has Had Such An Incalculably Huge Effect On Human Affairs. What Is It? What Does It Represent? Why Have We Invented It? How Does It Keep Going? What Will Become Of 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.

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.

The Heart Of Gold Fled On Silently Through The Night Of Space, Now On Conventional Photon Drive. Its Crew Of Four Were Ill As Ease Knowing That They Had Been Brought Together Not Of Their Own Volition Or By Simple Coincidence, But By Some Curious Perversion Of Physics- As If Relationships Between People Were Susceptible To The Same Laws That Governed The Relationships Between Atoms And Molecules

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

Not Unnaturally, Many Elevators Imbued With Intelligence And Precognition Became Terribly Frustrated With The Mindless Business Of Going Up And Down, Up And Down, Experimented Briefly With The Notion Of Going Sideways, As A Sort Of Existential Protest, Demanded Participation In The Decision-making Process And Finally Took To Squatting In Basements Sulking. An Impoverished Hitch-hiker Visiting Any Planets In The Sirius Star System These Days Can Pick Up Easy Money Working As A Counsellor For Neurotic Elevators.

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

Cigarette Smoke

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.

If You Try And Take A Cat Apart To See How It Works, The First Thing You Have On Your Hands Is A Nonworking Cat.

I'm Up To Here With Cool, Okay? I Am So Amazingly Cool You Could Keep A Side Of Meat In Me For A Month. I Am So Hip I Have Difficulty Seeing Over My Pelvis.

One Day Old Thrashbarg Said That Almighty Bob Had Declared That He, Thrashbarg, Was To Have First Pick Of The Sandwiches. The Villagers Asked Him When This Had Happened, Exactly, And Thrashbarg Said It Had Happened Yesterday, When They Weren't Looking. 'have Faith,' Old Thrashbarg Said, 'or Burn!' They Let Him Have First Pick Of The Sandwiches. It Seemed Easiest.

"does God Know He [exists]?" "of Course He Does. Otherwise, You Could Not Have Asked The Question, And I Could Not Have Answered."

That Was It. That Was Really It. She Knew That She Had Told Herself That That Was It Only Seconds Earlier, But This Was Now The Final Real Ulimate It.

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

There’s No Point In Acting Surprised About It. All The Planning Charts And Demolition Orders Have Been On Display At Your Local Planning Department In Alpha Centauri For 50 Of Your Earth Years, So You’ve Had Plenty Of Time To Lodge Any Formal Complaint And It’s Far Too Late To Start Making A Fuss About It Now... What Do You Mean You’ve Never Been To Alpha Centauri? Oh, For Heaven’s Sake, Mankind, It’s Only Four Light Years Away, You Know. I’m Sorry, But If You Can’t Be Bothered To Take An Interest In Local Affairs, That’s Your Own Lookout. Energize The Demolition Beams.

Do You Find Coming To Terms With The Mindless Tedium Of It All Presents An Interesting Challenge?

The More I Think About Our Species The More I Think We Just Do Stuff And Make Up Explanations Later When Asked. But It's Not True That I Would Rather Write Than Read. I Would Rather Read Than Write. To Be Honest I Would Rather Hang Upside Down In A Bucket Than Write.

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

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.

He Spent A Lot Of Time Flying. He Learnt To Communicate With Birds And Discovered That Their Conversation Was Fantastically Boring. It Was All To Do With Wind Speed, Wing Spans, Power-to-weight Ratios And A Fair Bit About Berries. Unfortunately, He Discovered, Once You Have Learnt Birdspeak You Quickly Come To Realize That The Air Is Full Of It The Whole Time, Just Inane Bird Chatter. There Is No Getting Away From It.

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

We Live In Strange Times. We Also Live In Strange Places: Each In A Universe Of Our Own. The People With Whom We Populate Our Universes Are The Shadows Of Whole Other Universes Intersecting With Our Own. Being Able To Glance Out Into This Bewildering Complexity Of Infinite Recursion And Say Things Like, 'oh, Hi, Ed! Nice Tan. How's Carol?' Involves A Great Deal Of Filtering Skill For Which All Conscious Entities Have Eventually To Develop A Capacity In Order To Protect Themselves From The Contemplation Of The Chaos Through Which They Seethe And Tumble.

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.

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.

One Nonabsolute Number Is The Given Time Of Arrival, Which Is Now Known To Be One Of The Most Bizarre Of Mathematical Concepts, A Number Whose Existence Can Only Be Defined As Being Anything Other Than Itself. In Other Words, The Given Time Of Arrival Is The One Moment Of Time At Which It Is Impossible That Any Member Of The Party Will Arrive.

Mathematical Equations

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.

No One Really Knows What Mattresses Are Meant To Gain From Their Lives Either. They Are Large, Friendly, Pocket-sprung Creatures That Live Quiet Private Lives In The Marshes Of Sqornshellous Zeta. Many Of Them Get Caught, Slaughtered, Dried Out, Shipped Out And Slept On. None Of Them Seems To Mind This And All Of Them Are Called Zem.

I Am Rarely Happier Than When Spending Entire Day Programming My Computer To Perform Automatically A Task That It Would Otherwise Take Me A Good Ten Seconds To Do By Hand.

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

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

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

Hitchhikers Guide

The Future Of Computer Power Is Pure Simplicity.

When You Walk Through The Storm, Hold Your Head High And Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark! At The End Of The Storm Is A Golden Sky And The Sweet Song Of The Lark. Walk On Through The Wind Walk On Through The Rain Though Your Dreams Be Tossed & Blown Walk On, Walk On, With Hope In Your Heart And You'll Never Walk Alone!

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.

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?

The Only Person For Whom The House Was In Any Way Special Was Arthur Dent, And That Was Only Because It Happened To Be The One He Lived In.

Bistromathics Itself Is Simply A Revolutionary New Way Of Understanding The Behavior Of Numbers. Just As Einstein Observed That Space Was Not An Absolute But Depended On The Observer's Movement In Space, And That Time Was Not An Absolute, But Depended On The Observer's Movement In Time, So It Is Now Realized That Numbers Are Not Absolute, But Depend On The Observer's Movement In Restaurants.

It Takes An Awful Lot Of Time To Not Write A Book.

He Felt Like An Old Sponge Steeped In Paraffin And Left In The Sun To Dry.

High On A Rocky Promontory Sat An Electric Monk On A Bored Horse.

The World Is A Thing Of Utter Inordinate Complexity And Richness And Strangeness That Is Absolutely Awesome.

Ah, This Is Obviously Some Strange Usage Of The Word 'safe' That I Wasn't Previously Aware Of.

'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.'

I Watched The Gorilla's Eyes Again, Wise And Knowing Eyes, And Wondered About This Business Of Trying To Teach Apes Language. Our Language. Why? There Are Many Members Of Our Own Species Who Live In And With The Forest And Know It And Understand It. We Don't Listen To Them. What Is There To Suggest We Would Listen To Anything An Ape Could Tell Us? Or That It Would Be Able To Tell Us Of Its Life In A Language That Hasn't Been Born Of That Life? I Thought, Maybe It Is Not That They Have Yet To Gain A Language, It Is That We Have Lost One.

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.

We're Not Obsessed By Anything, You See," Insisted Ford. "..." "and That's The Deciding Factor. We Can't Win Against Obsession. They Care, We Don't. They Win." "i Care About Lots Of Things," Said Slartibartfast, His Voice Trembling Partly With Annoyance, But Partly Also With Uncertainty. "such As?" "well," Said The Old Man, "life, The Universe. Everything, Really. Fjords." "would You Die For Them?" "fjords?" Blinked Slartibartfast In Surprise. "no." "well Then." "wouldn't See The Point, To Be Honest.

You Turn The Computer Into The Storyteller And The Player Into The Audience, Like In The Old Days When The Storyteller Would Actually Respond To The Audience, Rather Than Just Having The Audience Respond To The Storyteller. I Had An Enormous Amount Of Fun, Actually, Working On That.

If On The Other Hand He Went To Pay His Respects To The Door And It Wasn't There . . . What Then? The Answer, Of Course, Was Very Simple. He Had A Whole Board Of Circuits For Dealing With Exactly This Problem, In Fact This Was The Very Heart Of His Function. He Would Continue To Believe In It Whatever The Facts Turned Out To Be, What Else Was The Meaning Of Belief? The Door Would Still Be There, Even If The Door Was Not.

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

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.

The Complexities Of Cause And Effect Defy Analysis.

Cause And Effect

But While Nature Has Considerable Resilience, There Is A Limit To How Far That Resilience Can Be Stretched. No One Knows How Close To The Limit We Are Getting. The Darker It Gets, The Faster We're Driving

You Can't Dodge Your Responsibilities By Saying They Don't Exist!

The History Of Every Major Galactic Civilization Tends To Pass Through Three Distinct And Recognizable Phases, Those Of Survival, Inquiry And Sophistication, Otherwise Known As The How, Why, And Where Phases. For Instance, The First Phase Is Characterized By The Question 'how Can We Eat?' The Second By The Question 'why Do We Eat?' And The Third By The Question 'where Shall We Have Lunch?

I Only Know As Much About Myself As My Mind Can Work Out Under Its Current Conditions. And Its Current Conditions Are Not Good.

He Learned To Communicate With Birds And Discovered Their Conversation Was Fantastically Boring. It Was All To Do With Windspeed, Wingspans, Power-to-weight Ratios And A Fair Bit About Berries.

He Inched His Way Up The Corridor As If He Would Rather Be Yarding His Way Down It, Which Was True.

Arthur Dent: What Happens If I Press This Button? Ford Prefect: I Wouldn't- Arthur Dent: Oh. Ford Prefect: What Happened? Arthur Dent: A Sign Lit Up, Saying 'please Do Not Press This Button Again.

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.

Yes It Is,' Said The Professor. 'wait—' He Motioned To Richard, Who Was About To Go Out Again And Investigate— 'let It Be. It Won't Be Long.' Richard Stared In Disbelief. 'you Say There's A Horse In Your Bathroom, And All You Can Do Is Stand There Naming Beatles Songs?' The Professor Looked Blankly At Him.

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.”

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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