Background Image

...

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.

-Douglas Adams

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

When The Girl Sitting

Douglas Adams

...

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.

Views: 75224

Topic

More From Douglas Adams

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

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

Cigarette Smoke

Douglas Adams Did Not Enjoy Writing, And He Enjoyed It Less As Time Went On. He Was A Bestselling, Acclaimed, And Much-loved Novelist Who Had Not Set Out To Be A Novelist, And Who Took Little Joy In The Process Of Crafting Novels. He Loved Talking To Audiences. He Liked Writing Screenplays. He Liked Being At The Cutting Edge Of Technology And Inventing

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

Earth: Mostly Harmless

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Hardest Assumption To Challenge Is The One You Don't Even Know You Are Making.

"i Think We Have Different Value Systems." "well, Mine's Better."

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

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."

How Can I Tell," Said The Man, "that The Past Isn't A Fiction Designed To Account For The Discrepancy Between My Immediate Physical Sensations And My State Of Mind?

I Think The Problem, To Be Quite Honest With You, Is That You've Never Actually Known What The Question Is.

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

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 Complexities Of Cause And Effect Defy Analysis.

Cause And Effect

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

Take A Deep Breath

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Yes. They Are The Words That Finally Turned Me Into The Hermit I Have Now Become. It Was Quite Sudden. I Saw Them, And I Knew What I Had To Do." The Sign Read: "hold Stick Near Center Of Its Length. Moisten Pointed End In Mouth. Insert In Tooth Space, Blunt End Next To Gum. Use Gentle In-out Motion." "it Seemed To Me," Said Wonko The Sane, "that Any Civilization That Had So Far Lost Its Head As To Need To Include A Set Of Detailed Instructions For Use In A Package Of Toothpicks, Was No Longer A Civilization In Which I Could Live And Stay Sane.

The Future Of Computer Power Is Pure Simplicity.

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.

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.

The Encyclopedia Galactica Defines A Robot As A Mechanical Apparatus Designed To Do The Work Of A Man. The Marketing Division Of The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Defines A Robot As "your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Defines The Marketing Devision Of The Sirius Cybernetic Corporation As "a Bunch Of Mindless Jerks Who'll Be The First Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Only Thing Nicer Than A Phone That Didn't Ring All The Time (or Indeed At All) Was Six Phones That Didn't Ring All The Time (or Indeed At All).

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.

I Come In Peace...take Me To Your Lizard.

If The Universe Came To An End Every Time There Was Some Uncertainty About What Had Happened In It, It Would Never Have Got Beyond The First Picosecond. And Many Of Course Don't. It's Like A Human Body, You See. A Few Cuts And Bruises Here And There Don't Hurt It. Not Even Major Surgery If It's Done Properly. Paradoxes Are Just The Scar Tissue. Time And Space Heal Themselves Up Around Them And People Simply Remember A Version Of Events Which Makes As Much Sense As They Require It To Make.

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.

Time Is An Illusion. Lunchtime Doubly So.

Lovers Of Print Are Simply Confusing The Plate For The Food.

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.

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.

If There's Anything More Important Than My Ego Around, I Want It Caught And Shot Now.

Aberystwyth (n.) A Nostalgic Yearning Which Is In Itself More Pleasant Than The Thing Being Yearned For.

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

Earthmen Are Not Proud Of Their Ancestors And Never Invite Them Round To Dinner.

The Answer To The Great Question... Of Life, The Universe And Everything... Is... Forty-two,' Said Deep Thought, With Infinite Majesty And Calm.

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.

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 Is This God Person Anyway?

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

Hitchhikers Guide

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

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

All Through My Life I've Had This Strange Unaccountable Feeling That Something Was Going On In The World, Something Big, Even Sinister, And No One Would Tell Me What It Was." "no," Said The Old Man, "that's Just Perfectly Normal Paranoia. Everyone In The Universe Has That.

Perfectly Normal

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.

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

How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down?

Ultimate Questions

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

The Difference Between Us And A Computer Is That, The Computer Is Blindingly Stupid, But It Is Capable Of Being Stupid Many, Many Million Times A Second.

Ghastly," Continued Marvin, "it All Is. Absolutely Ghastly. Just Don't Even Talk About It. Look At This Door," He Said, Stepping Through It. The Irony Circuits Cut In To His Voice Modulator As He Mimicked The Style Of The Sales Brochure. " 'all The Doors In His Spaceship Have A Cheerful And Sunny Disposition. It Is Their Pleasure To Open For You, And Their Satisfaction To Close Again With The Knowledge Of A Job Well Done.' " As The Door Closed Behind Them It Became Apparent That It Did Indeed Have A Satisfied Sighlike Quality To It. "hummmmmmmyummmmmmmah!" It Said.

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

Let The Past Hold On To Itself And Let The Present Move Forward Into The Future.

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

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

Generally, Old Media Don't Die. They Just Have To Grow Old Gracefully. Guess What, We Still Have Stone Masons. They Haven't Been The Primary Purveyors Of The Written Word For A While Now Of Course, But They Still Have A Role Because You Wouldn't Want A Tv Screen On Your Headstone.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

But Nowadays Everybody's A Comedian, Even The Weather Girls And Continuity Announcers. We Laugh At Everything. Not Intelligently Anymore, Not With Sudden Shock, Astonishment, Or Revelation, Just Relentlessly And Meaninglessly. No More Rain Showers In The Desert, Just Mud And Drizzle Everywhere, Occasionally Illuminated By The Flash Of Paparazzi.

He Has Personality Problems Beyond The Dreams Of Analysts.

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

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.

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

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

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

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.

I Tend Not To Read Or Watch Science Fiction, Particularly Not Comedy Science Fiction. The Point Is That If It's Less Good Than What I Do, There's No Point In Reading It, If It's Better Than What I Do It Makes Me Depressed

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.

Arthur Blinked At The Screens And Felt He Was Missing Something Important. Suddenly He Realized What It Was. "is There Any Tea On This Spaceship?" He Asked.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Life Is Wasted On The Living.

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.

It Is A Rare Mind Indeed That Can Render The Hitherto Non-existent Blindingly Obvious. The Cry 'i Could Have Thought Of That' Is A Very Popular And Misleading One, For The Fact Is That They Didn't, And A Very Significant And Revealing Fact It Is Too.

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.

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

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

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

What Is This? Some Sort Of Galactic Hyperhearse?

Zaphod Beeblebrox

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

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

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?

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.

If Everyone Knew Exactly What I Was Going To Say, Then There Would Be No Point In My Saying It, Would There?

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

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...

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!

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

Space Is Unimaginably Big.

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.

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.

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.

And The Most Interesting Natural Structure? A Giant, Two-thousand-mile-long Fish In Orbit Around Jupiter, According To A Reliable Report In The Weekly World News. The Photograph Was Very Convincing, And I'm Only Surprised That More-reputable Journals Like New Scientist, Or Even Just The Sun, Haven't Followed Up With More Details. We Should Be Told.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

If Somebody Votes For A Party That You Don't Agree With, You're Free To Argue About It As Much As You Like. ... But On The Other Hand, If Somebody Says, 'i Mustn't Move A Light Switch On A Saturday,' You Say, 'fine, I Respect That.'

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 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.

The Air Was Stifling, But He Liked It Because It Was Stifling City Air, Full Of Excitingly Unpleasant Smells, Dangerous Music, And The Distant Sound Of Warring Police Tribes.

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

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.

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.

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

I'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.

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.

When People You Greatly Admire Appear To Be Thinking Deep Thoughts, They Probably Are Thinking About Lunch.

I've Come Up With A Set Of Rules That Describe Our Reactions To Technologies: 1. Anything That Is In The World When You’re Born Is Normal And Ordinary And Is Just A Natural Part Of The Way The World Works. 2. Anything That's Invented Between When You’re Fifteen And Thirty-five Is New And Exciting And Revolutionary And You Can Probably Get A Career In It. 3. Anything Invented After You're Thirty-five Is Against The Natural Order Of Things.

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

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

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.

If There's Any Real Truth, It's That The Entire Multidimensional Infinity Of The Universe Is Almost Certainly Being Run By A Bunch Of Maniacs.

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

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.

I Like The Cover," He Said. "don't Panic. It's The First Helpful Or Intelligible Thing Anybody's Said To Me All Day.

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.

We Demand Rigidly Defined Areas Of Doubt And Uncertainty!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Science Fiction That's Just About People Wandering Around In Space Ships Shooting Each Other With Ray Guns Is Very Dull. I Like It When It Enables You To Do Fairly Radical Reinterpretations Of Human Experience, Just To Show All The Different Interpretations That Can Be Put On Apparently Fairly Simple And Commonplace Events. That I Find Fun.

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.

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.

Time Doesn't Necessarily Happen In Chronological Order.

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

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

Conceited Little Mega-puppy.

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.

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

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.

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!

The Presidents Job, Is Not To Wield Power Himself, But To Lead Attention Away From It.

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

The Guide Is Definitive. Reality Is Frequently Inaccurate.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Trending Author

Doris Kearns Goodwin

William Golding

Category