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The Impossible Often Has A Kind Of Integrity To It Which The Merely Improbable Lacks. How Often Have You Been Presented With An Apparently Rational Explanation Of Something That Works In All Respects Other Than One, Which Is Just That It Is Hopelessly Improbable? Your Instinct Is To Say, 'yes, But He Or She Simply Wouldn't Do That.

-Douglas Adams

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The Impossible Often Has

Douglas Adams

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The Impossible Often Has A Kind Of Integrity To It Which The Merely Improbable Lacks. How Often Have You Been Presented With An Apparently Rational Explanation Of Something That Works In All Respects Other Than One, Which Is Just That It Is Hopelessly Improbable? Your Instinct Is To Say, 'yes, But He Or She Simply Wouldn't Do That.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Meanwhile, The Poor Babel Fish, By Effectively Removing All Barriers To Communication Between Different Races And Cultures, Has Caused More And Bloodier Wars Than Anything Else In The History Of Creation.

But The Reason I Call Myself By My Childhood Name Is To Remind Myself That A Scientist Must Also Be Absolutely Like A Child. If He Sees A Thing, He Must Say That He Sees It, Whether It Was What He Thought He Was Going To See Or Not. See First, Think Later, Then Test. But Always See First. Otherwise You Will Only See What You Were Expecting.

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.

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

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.

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. People Living At Point C, Being A Point Directly In Between, Are Often Given To Wonder What's So Great About Point A That So Many People From Point B Are So Keen To Get There And What's So Great About Point B That So Many People From Point A Are So Keen To Get There. They Often Wish That People Would Just Once And For All Work Out Where The Hell They Wanted To Be.

Siamese Cats Have A Way Of Staring At You. Those Who Have Walked In On The Queen Cleaning Her Teeth Will Know The Expression.

Zaphod Beeblebrox, Adventurer, Ex-hippie, Good-timer (crook? Quite Possibly), Manic Self-publicist, Terrible Bad At Personal Relationships, Often Thought To Be Completely Out To Lunch.

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.

Assumptions Are What We Don't Know We Are Making

Time Doesn't Necessarily Happen In Chronological Order.

Isn't It Enough To See That A Garden Is Beautiful Without Having To Believe That There Are Fairies At The Bottom Of It Too?

He Shifted His Weight From Foot To Foot, But It Was Equally Uncomfortable On Each.

I Think All Cats Are Wild. They Only Act Tame If There´s A Saucer Of Milk In It For Them.

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.

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 Future Of Computer Power Is Pure Simplicity.

What To Do If You Find Yourself Stuck In A Crack In The Ground Underneath A Giant Boulder You Can't Move, With No Hope Of Rescue. Consider How Lucky You Are That Life Has Been Good To You So Far. Alternatively, If Life Hasn't Been Good To You So Far, Which Given Your Current Circumstances Seems More Likely, Consider How Lucky You Are That It Won't Be Troubling You Much Longer.

Finding Yourself

My Capacity For Happiness," He Added, "you Could Fit Into A Matchbox Without Taking Out The Matches First

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.

He Would Have Felt Safe If Alongside The Dentrassis' Underwear, The Piles Of Sqornshellous Mattresses And The Man From Betelgeuse Holding Up A Small Yellow Fish And Offering To Put It In His Ear He Had Been Able To See Just A Small Packet Of Cornflakes. But He Couldn't, And He Didn't Feel Safe.

I Didn't Notice I Was Being Set Upon By A Pickpocket, Which I Am Glad Of, Because I Like To Work Only With Professionals.

Lord, Lord, Lord. Protect Me From The Consequences Of The Above Prayer.

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

It Can Hardly Be A Coincidence That No Language On Earth Has Ever Produced The Expression "as Pretty As An Airport." Airports Are Ugly. Some Are Very Ugly. Some Attain A Degree Of Ugliness That Can Only Be The Result Of A Special Effort. This Ugliness Arises Because Airports Are Full Of People Who Are Tired, Cross, And Have Just Discovered That Their Luggage Has Landed In Murmansk (murmansk Airport Is The Only Exception Of This Otherwise Infallible Rule), And Architects Have On The Whole Tried To Reflect This In Their Designs.

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

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

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

Well, I Mean, Yes Idealism, Yes The Dignity Of Pure Research, Yes The Pursuit Of Truth In All Its Forms, But There Comes A Point I'm Afraid Where You Begin To Suspect That The Entire Multidimensional Infinity Of The Universe Is Almost Certainly Being Run By A Bunch Of Maniacs. And If It Comes To A Choice Between Spending Yet Another Ten Million Years Finding That Out, And On The Other Hand Just Taking The Money And Running, Then I For One Could Do With The Exercise.

What Is The Point? We Assume That Every Time We Do Anything We Know What The Consequences Will Be, I.e., More Or Less What We Intend Them To Be. This Is Not Only Not Always Correct. It Is Wildly, Crazily, Stupidly, Cross-eyed-blithering-insectly Wrong!

From Another Direction He Felt The Sensation Of Being A Sheep Startled By A Flying Saucer, But It Was Virtually Indistinguishable From The Feeling Of Being A Sheep Startled By Anything Else It Ever Encountered, For They Were Creatures Who Learned Very Little On Their Journey Through Life, And Would Be Startled To See The Sun Rising In The Morning, And Astonished By All The Green Stuff In The Fields.

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Here's What The Encyclopedia Galactica Has To Say About Alcohol. It Says That Alcohol Is A Colourless Volatile Liquid Formed By The Fermentation Of Sugars And Also Notes Its Intoxicating Effect On Certain Carbon-based Life Forms.

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 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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Anything That Happens, Happens. Anything That, In Happening, Causes Something Else To Happen, Causes Something Else To Happen. Anything That, In Happening, Causes Itself To Happen Again, Happens Again. It Doesn’t Necessarily Do It In Chronological Order, Though.

It Can Be Very Dangerous To See Things From Somebody Else's Point Of View Without The Proper Training.

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

Just Supposing," He Said, "just Supposing" --he Didn't Know What Was Coming Next, So He Thought He'd Just Sit Back And Listen--"that There Was Some Extraordinary Way In Which You Were Very Important To Me, And That, Though You Didn't Know It, I Was Very Important To You, But It All Went For Nothing Because We Only Had Five Miles And I Was A Stupid Idiot At Knowing How To Say Something Very Important To Someone I've Only Just Met And Not Crash Into Lorries A The Same Time, What Would You Say..." He Paused, Helplessly, And Looked At Her. "i Should Do.

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.

I Find The Whole Business Of Religion Profoundly Interesting. But It Does Mystify Me That Otherwise Intelligent People Take It Seriously.

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

You Barbarians!' He Yelled. 'i'll Sue The Council For Every Penny It's Got! I'll Have You Hung, Drawn And Quartered! And Whipped! And Boiled...until...until...until...until You've Had Enough.' Ford Was Running After Him. Very Very Fast. 'and Then I Will Do It Again!' Yelled Arthur, 'and When I've Finished I Will Take All The Little Bits, And I Will Jump On Them!

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.

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

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.

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

Even The Evil-looking Bird Perched On A Rod In The Bar Had Stopped Screeching Out The Names And Addresses Of Local Contract Killers, Which Was A Service It Provided For Free.

Ballycumber (ba-li-kum-ber) N. One Of The Six Half-read Books Lying Somewhere In Your Bed.

He Sniggered. He Didn't Like To Think Of Himself As The Sort Of Person Who Giggled Or Sniggered, But He Had To Admit That He Had Been Giggling And Sniggering Almost Continuously For Well Over Half An Hour Now.

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

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

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.

But For A Moment Dirk Had A Sense Of Inifinite Loss And Sadness That Somewhere Among The Frenzy Of Information Noise That Daily Rattled The Lives Of Men He Thought He Might Have Heard A Few Notes That Denoted The Movements Of Gods.

Radio Did Not Kill Books And Television Did Not Kill Radio Or Movies - What Television Did Kill Was Cinema Newsreel. Tv Does It Much Better Because It Can Deliver It Instantly. Who Wants Last Week's News?

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.

You Come To Me For Advice, But You Can't Cope With Anything You Don't Recognize. Hmmm. So We'll Have To Tell You Something You Already Know But Make It Sound Like News, Eh Well, Business As Usual , I Suppose.

The Waiter Approached. 'would You Like To See The Menu?' He Said. 'or Would You Like To Meet The Dish Of The Day?' 'huh?' Said Ford. 'huh?' Said Arthur. 'huh?' Said Trillian. 'that’s Cool,' Said Zaphod. 'we'll Meet The Meat.

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.

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.

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

Beppu (n.) The Triumphant Slamming Shut Of A Book After Reading The Final Page.

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

Who Should Play The Lead Role In A Film About Me? Dunno. Danny De Vito? Jeff Goldblum? Meryl Streep? Someone Of That Kind.

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.

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.

They Wouldn’t Even Lift A Finger To Save Their Own Grandmothers From The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal Without Orders Signed In Triplicate, Sent In, Sent Back, Queried, Lost, Found, Subjected To Public Inquiry, Lost Again, And Finally Buried In Soft Peat For Three Months And Recycled As Firelighters.

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

If I Were Not An Atheist, I Think I Would Have To Be A Catholic Because If It Wasn't The Forces Of Natural Selection That Designed Fish, It Must Have Been An Italian.

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.

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.

The Bird That Would Soar Above The Plain Of Tradition And Prejudice Must Have Strong Wings.

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 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.

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.

Shoeburyness (abs.n.) The Vague Uncomfortable Feeling You Get When Sitting On A Seat Which Is Still Warm From Somebody Else's Bottom.

Uncomfortable Feeling

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Cigarette Smoke

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

To Trin Tragula's Horror, The Shock Completely Annihilated Her Brain; But To His Satisfaction He Realized That He Had Proved Conclusively That 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.

In Fact, Lig Never Formally Resigned His Editorship—he Merely Left His Office Late One Morning, And Has Never Returned Since. Though Well Over A Century Has Now Passed, Many Members Of The Guide Staff Still Retain The Romantic Notion That He Has Simply Popped Out For A Sandwich And Will Yet Return To Put In A Solid Afternoon's Work. Strictly Speaking, All Editors Since Lig Lury Jr., Have Therefore Been Designated Acting Editors, And Lig's Desk Is Still Preserved The Way He Left It, With The Addition Of A Small Sign That Says Lig Lury, Jr., Editor, Missing, Presumed Fed.

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.

The Invention Of The Scientific Method And Science Is, I'm Sure We'll All Agree, The Most Powerful Intellectual Idea, The Most Powerful Framework For Thinking And Investigating And Understanding And Challenging The World Around Us That There Is, And It Rests On The Premise That Any Idea Is There To Be Attacked. If It Withstands The Attack Then It Lives To Fight Another Day And If It Doesn't Withstand The Attack Then Down It Goes. Religion Doesn't Seem To Work Like That.

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.'

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

In The Beginning The Universe Was Created. This Has Made A Lot Of People Very Angry And Been Widely Regarded As A Bad Move.

Let Us Think The Unthinkable, Let Us Do The Undoable, Let Us Prepare To Grapple With The Ineffable Itself, And See If We May Not Eff It After All.

I Think The Idea Of Art Kills Creativity.

The Fact Is, I Don't Know Where My Ideas Come From. Nor Does Any Writer. The Only Real Answer Is To Drink Way Too Much Coffee And Buy Yourself A Desk That Doesn't Collapse When You Beat Your Head Against It.

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

...and The Renewed Shock Had Nearly Made Him Spill His Drink. He Drained It Quickly Before Anything Serious Happened To It. He Then Had Another Quick One To Follow The First One Down And Check That It Was All Right.

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.

The Ships Hung In The Sky In Much The Same Way That Bricks Don't.

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.

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

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

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.

He Hoped And Prayed That There Wasn't An Afterlife. Then He Realized There Was A Contradiction Involved Here And Merely Hoped That There Wasn't An Afterlife.

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.

I Wanted To Be John Cleese. It Took Me Some Time To Realise That The Job Was Taken.

Mc Donalds He Thought. There's No Longer Any Such Thing As A Mc Donalds Hamburger. He Passed Out. When He Came Around Seconds Later He Found He Was Sobbing For His Mother.

It Was One Of Those Pictures That Children Are Supposed To Like But Don't. Full Of Endearing Little Animals Doing Endearing Things, You Know?

Time Affords Us The Ability To Blame Past Errors On Others While Whole Heartedly Pronouncing Our Futures Successes.

The Complexities Of Cause And Effect Defy Analysis.

Cause And Effect

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

The Universe, As Has Been Observed Before, Is An Unsettlingly Big Place, A Fact Which For The Sake Of A Quiet Life Most People Tend To Ignore.

The World Is A Thing Of Utter Inordinate Complexity And Richness And Strangeness That Is Absolutely Awesome. I Mean The Idea That Such Complexity Can Arise Not Only Out Of Such Simplicity, But Probably Absolutely Out Of Nothing, Is The Most Fabulous Extraordinary Idea. And Once You Get Some Kind Of Inkling Of How That Might Have Happened ' It's Just Wonderful. And . . . The Opportunity To Spend 70 Or 80 Years Of Your Life In Such A Universe Is Time Well Spent As Far As I Am Concerned.

First We Thought The Pc Was A Calculator. Then We Found Out How To Turn Numbers Into Letters With Ascii — And We Thought It Was A Typewriter. Then We Discovered Graphics, And We Thought It Was A Television. With The World Wide Web, We've Realized It's A Brochure.

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

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.

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.

He Has Personality Problems Beyond The Dreams Of Analysts.

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.

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.

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.

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

David Attenborough Has Said That Bali Is The Most Beautiful Place In The World, But He Must Have Been There Longer Than We Were, And Seen Different Bits, Because Most Of What We Saw In The Couple Of Days We Were There Sorting Out Our Travel Arrangements Was Awful. It Was Just The Tourist Area, I.e. That Part Of Bali Which Has Been Made Almost Exactly The Same As Everywhere Else In The World For The Sake Of People Who Have Come All This Way To See Bali.

One Of The Things Ford Prefect Had Always Found Hardest To Understand About Humans Was Their Habit Of Continually Stating And Repeating The Very Very Obvious.

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.

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

The Somebody Else's Problem Field Is Much Simpler And More Effective, And What's More Can Be Run For Over A Hundred Years On A Single Torch Battery. This Is Because It Relies On People's Natural Disposition Not To See Anything They Don't Want To, Weren't Expecting, Or Can't Explain.

The Major Difference Between A Thing That Might Go Wrong And A Thing That Cannot Possibly Go Wrong Is That When A Thing That Cannot Possibly Go Wrong Goes Wrong It Usually Turns Out To Be Impossible To Get At And Repair.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Guide Is Definitive. Reality Is Frequently Inaccurate.

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.

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.

The Impossible Often Has A Kind Of Integrity Which The Merely Improbable Lacks.

Impossible Things

Possible And Impossible

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

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.

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

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.

We Demand Rigidly Defined Areas Of Doubt And Uncertainty!

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.

The Impossible Often Has A Kind Of Integrity To It Which The Merely Improbable Lacks. How Often Have You Been Presented With An Apparently Rational Explanation Of Something That Works In All Respects Other Than One, Which Is Just That It Is Hopelessly Improbable? Your Instinct Is To Say, 'yes, But He Or She Simply Wouldn't Do That.

How Do I Know The Past Is Not A Fiction Conceived To Reconcile The Difference Between My State Of Mind And The Present.

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.

Everything You See Or Hear Or Experience In Any Way At All Is Specific To You. You Create A Universe By Perceiving It, So Everything In The Universe You Perceive Is Specific To You.

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

The First Ten Million Years Were The Worst," Said Marvin, "and The Second Ten Million Years, They Were The Worst Too. The Third Ten Million Years I Didn't Enjoy At All. After That I Went Into A Bit Of A Decline.

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.

Assumptions Are The Things We Don't Know We're Making.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Life... Is Like A Grapefruit. It's Orange And Squishy, And Has A Few Pips In It, And Some Folks Have Half A One For Breakfast.

They Live In Perpetual Fear Of The Time They Call "the Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief

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

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

...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.

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.

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