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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?

-Douglas Adams

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What I Mean Is

Douglas Adams

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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?

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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.

It Takes A Long Time Before We Really Get To Grips With This [darwin's 'on The Origin Of Species'] And Begin To Understand It, Because Not Only Does It Seem Incredible And Thoroughly Demeaning To Us, But It's Yet Another Shock To Our System To Discover That Not Only Are We Not The Centre Of The Universe And We're Not Made By Anything, But We Started Out As Some Kind Of Slime And Got To Where We Are Via Being A Monkey. It Just Doesn't Read Well.

He Didn't Know Why He Had Become President Of The Galaxy, Except That It Seemed A Fun Thing To Be.

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

Far Out In The Uncharted Backwaters Of The Unfashionable End Of The Western Spiral Arm Of The Galaxy Lies A Small Unregarded Yellow Pizza.

Assumptions Are What We Don't Know We Are Making

He Has Personality Problems Beyond The Dreams Of Analysts.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

If God Allows Proof That He Exists He Robs People Of Faith And Without Faith What Is God? Nothing.

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

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.

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

...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.

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

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

Space Is Really Big-really Big.

A Learning Experience Is One Of Those Things That Says, 'you Know That Thing You Just Did? Don't Do That.

There Is A Piece Of Me That Likes To Fondly Imagine My Maverick And Rebellious Nature, But, More Accurately, I Like To Have A Nice And Cosy Institution That I Can Rub Up Against A Little Bit.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The More Susan Waited, The More The Doorbell Didn't Ring. Or The Phone.

The Lights Were Off So That His Heads Could Avoid Looking At Each Other Because Neither Of Them Was Currently A Particular Engaging Sight, Nor Had They Been Since He Had Made The Error Of Looking Into His Soul. It Had Indeed Been An Error. It Had Been Late One Night-- Of Course. It Had Been A Difficult Day-- Of Course. There Had Been Soulful Music Playing On The Ship's Sound System-- Of Course. And He Had, Of Course, Been Slightly Drunk. In Other Words, All The Usual Conditions That Bring On A Bout Of Soul Searching Had Applied, But It Had, Nevertheless, Clearly Been An Error.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

What Does It Matter? Science Has Achieved Some Wonderful Things, Of Course, But I'd Far Rather Be Happy Than Right Any Day.

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

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.

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

Being Virtually Killed By A Virtual Laser In A Virtual Space Is Just As Effective As The Real Thing, Because You Are As Dead As You Think You Are.

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

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 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.

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 Teacher Usually Learns More Than The Pupils. Isn't That True? "it Would Be Hard To Learn Much Less Than My Pupils," Came A Low Growl From Somewhere On The Table, "without Undergoing A Pre-frontal Lobotomy."

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

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.

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

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

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish.

Democracies Have

In An Infinite Universe Anything Can Happen.

Anything Can Happen

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

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

The Kakapo Is A Bird Out Of Time. If You Look One In Its Large, Round, Greeny-brown Face, It Has A Look Of Serenely Innocent Incomprehension That Makes You Want To Hug It And Tell It That Everything Will Be All Right, Thought You Know That It Probably Will Not Be.

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.

Technology Is A Word That Describes Something That Doesn't Work Yet.

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.

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 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.

I Am Rarely Happier Than When Spending An Entire Day Programming My Computer.

How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down?

Ultimate Questions

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reality Is Hopelessly Inaccurate.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

And All Dared To Brave Unknown Terrors, To Do Mighty Deeds, To Boldly Split Infinitives That No Man Had Split Before--and Thus Was The Empire Forged.

We’ll Meet The Meat.

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

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.

I'm Spending A Year Dead For Tax Reasons.

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.'

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

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

Ford Prefect Suppressed A Little Giggle Of Evil Satisfaction, Realized That He Had No Reason To Suppress It, And Laughed Out Loud, A Wicked Laugh.

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.

Nobody Likes A Whistler, Particularly Not The Divinity That Shapes Our Ends.

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

It Is Difficult To Be Sat On All Day, Every Day, By Some Other Creature, Without Forming An Opinion On Them. On The Other Hand, It Is Perfectly Possible To Sit All Day, Every Day, On Top Of Another Creature And Not Have The Slightest Thought About Them Whatsoever.

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.

Structural Linguistics Is A Bitterly Divided And Unhappy Profession, And A Large Number Of Its Practitioners Spend Many Nights Drowning Their Sorrows In Ouisghian Zodahs.

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.

This Planet Has - Or Rather Had - A Problem, Which Was This: Most Of The People Living On It Were Unhappy For Pretty Much Of The Time. Many Solutions Were Suggested For This Problem, But Most Of These Were Largely Concerned With The Movement Of Small Green Pieces Of Paper, Which Was Odd Because On The Whole It Wasn't The Small Green Pieces Of Paper That Were Unhappy.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Cigarette Smoke

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.

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.

Technology Is The Name We Give To Stuff That Doesn't Work Properly Yet

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.

The Complexities Of Cause And Effect Defy Analysis.

Cause And Effect

One Of The Major Problems Encountered In Time Travel Is Not That Of Accidentally Becoming Your Own Father Or Mother. There Is No Problem Involved In Becoming Your Own Father Or Mother That A Broadminded And Well-adjusted Family Can't Cope With.

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.

Even Light, Which Travels So Fast It Takes Most Races Thousands Of Years To Realize That It Travels At All, Takes Time To Journey Between The Stars.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

If You Took A Couple Of David Bowies And Stuck One Of The David Bowies On The Top Of The Other David Bowie, Then Attached Another David Bowie To The End Of Each Of The Arms Of The Upper Of The First Two David Bowies And Wrapped The Whole Business Up In A Dirty Beach Robe You Would Then Have Something Which Didn't Exactly Look Like John Watson, But Which Those Who Knew Him Would Find Hauntingly Familiar.

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

The Lights Went Out In His Eyes For Absolutely The Very Last Time Ever.

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.

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!

The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy Offers This Definition Of The Word "infinite". Infinite: Bigger Than The Biggest Thing Ever And Then Some. Much Bigger Than That In Fact, Really Amazingly Immense, A Totally Stunning Size, "wow, That's Big", Time. Infinity Is Just So Big That By Comparison, Bigness Itself Looks Really Titchy. Gigantic Multiplied By Colossal Multiplied By Staggeringly Huge Is The Sort Of Concept We're Trying To Get Across Here.

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.

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

When The Idea Comes, I Often Can't Remember Where It Came From. I Remember Very Little About Writing The First Series Of Hitchhiker's. It's Almost As If Someone Else Wrote It.

Nobody Got Murdered Before Lunch. But Nobody. People Weren't Up To It. You Needed A Good Lunch To Get Both The Blood-sugar And Blood-lust Levels Up.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

And Then, One Thursday, Nearly Two Thousand Years After One Man Had Been Nailed To A Tree For Saying How Great It Would Be To Be Nice To People For A Change, A Girl Sitting On Her Own In A Small Café In Rickmansworth Suddenly Realized What It Was That Had Been Going Wrong All This Time, And She Finally Knew How The World Could Be Made A Good And Happy Place. This Time It Was Right, It Would Work, And No One Would Have To Get Nailed To Anything.

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.

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.

You Know," Said Arthur, "it's At Times Like This, When I'm Trapped In A Vogon Airlock With A Man From Betelgeuse, And About To Die Of Asphyxiation In Deep Space That I Really Wish I'd Listened To What My Mother Told Me When I Was Young." "why, What Did She Tell You?" "i Don't Know, I Didn't Listen.

Ford Carried On Counting Quietly. This Is About The Most Aggressive Thing You Can Do To A Computer, The Equivalent Of Going Up To A Human Being And Saying "blood...blood...blood...blood...

He Actually Caught Himself Saying Things Like "yippee," As He Pranced Ridiculously Round The House.

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

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

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

Pardon Me For Breathing, Which I Never Do Any Way So I Don’t Know Why I Bother To Say It, Oh God, I’m So Depressed.

Gordon Way's Astonishment At Being Suddenly Shot Dead Was Nothing Compared To His Astonishment At What Happened Next.

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.

‎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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Grown Men, He Told Himself, In Flat Contradiction Of Centuries Of Accumulated Evidence About The Way Grown Men Behave, Do Not Behave Like This.

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

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

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

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

We Can't Win Against Obsession. They Care, We Don't. They Win.

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.

[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.

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.

Zaphod Felt He Was Teetering On The Edge Of Madness And Wondered If He Shouldn't Just Jump Over And Have Done With It.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Beauty Doesn't Have To Be About Anything. What's A Vase About? What's A Sunset Or A Flower About? What, For That Matter, Is Mozart's Twenty-third Piano Concerto About?

People Will Then Often Say, 'but Surely It's Better To Remain An Agnostic Just In Case?' This, To Me, Suggests Such A Level Of Silliness And Muddle That I Usually Edge Out Of The Conversation Rather Than Get Sucked Into It. (if It Turns Out That I've Been Wrong All Along, And There Is In Fact A God, And If It Further Turned Out That This Kind Of Legalistic, Cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian Hair-splitting Impressed Him, Then I Think I Would Choose Not To Worship Him Anyway.)

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

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.

Life! Don't Talk To Me About Life!

If There Was One Thing Life Had Taught Her It Was That There Are Times When You Do Not Go Back For Your Bag And Times When You Do. It Had Yet To Teach Her To Distinguish Between The Two Types Of Occasion.

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.

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?

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.

My Own Strategy Is To Find A Car, Or The Nearest Equivalent, Which Looks As If It Knows Where It's Going And Follow It. I Rarely End Up Where I Was Intending To Go, But Often I End Up Somewhere I Needed To Be.

Life Is Wasted On The Living.

Imagine A Puddle Waking Up One Morning And Thinking, " This Is An Interesting World I Find Myself In, An Interesting Hole I Find Myself In; Fits Me Rather Neatly, Doesn't It? In Fact It Fits Me Staggeringly Well! It Must Have Been Made To Have Me In It!

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.

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.

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

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.

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