The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy refers to the original radio plays, the first humorous science fiction book, and the expanded series by Douglas Adams about the adventures of ordinary Earthman Arthur Dent, and the colorful intergalactic characters he encounters after his planet is destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass. The written works (which have been presented in many forms over the years) have also been made into numerous audiobooks, television shows, further radio plays, and a film.

Contents 1 HHGG Characters 1.1 Arthur Dent 1.2 Ford Prefect 1.3 Marvin (The Paranoid Android) 1.4 Zaphod Beeblebrox 1.5 Trillian 2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel) 3 The Restaurant at the End of the Universe 4 Life, the Universe and Everything 5 So Long And Thanks for All the Fish 6 Mostly Harmless 7 Radio Series 8 Miscellaneous 9 See also 10 External links

HHGG Characters

There is no definitive version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Because of variations that exist between the radio programs, the books, and other productions, this first section provides some introductory quotes based on the character who declares them.

Arthur Dent

• "This must be Thursday," said Arthur musing to himself, sinking low over his beer, "I never could get the hang of Thursdays." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 2 [1]

• "How do you feel?" he [Ford Prefect] asked.
  "Like a military academy," said Arthur, "bits of me keep on passing out." - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 5 [2]

• Ford stood up. "We're safe," he said.
  "Oh good," said Arthur.
  "We're in a small galley cabin," said Ford, "in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet."
  "Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 5 [3]

• "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."
  [Ford Prefect:] "Why, what did she tell you?"
  [Arthur:] "I don't know, I didn't listen." The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 7 [4]

• "Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 9 [5]

• Arthur: "Ford, I think I'm a sofa."
  Ford: "I know how you feel." - "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", movie version

• "Why do you need to think? Can't we just sit and go budumbudumbudum with our lips for a bit?" - Mostly Harmless, c. 18

• "I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. As soon as I reach some kind of definite policy about what is my kind of music and my kind of restaurant and my kind of overdraft, people start blowing up my kind of planet and throwing me out of their kind of spaceships!" - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Radio Shows, Fit the Fourth

• "I don't want to die now. I've still got a headache. I don't want to go to heaven with a headache, I'd be all cross and wouldn't enjoy it" - "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Series. Fit the Second.

• "Who said anything about panicking?" snapped Arthur. "This is still just the culture shock. You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. Then I'll start panicking!"

• "Ford, there is an infinite number of monkeys outside, who wants to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they have worked out." - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Radio Shows

• "[to Ford] You expect me, to take advice from a man, who's brain is run by lemons!" - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (movie)

Ford Prefect

• "Six pints of bitter," said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and Groom. "And quickly please, the world's about to end." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 2 [6]

• "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 2 [7]

• "It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
  [Arthur:] "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
  [Ford:] "You ask a glass of water." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 6 [8]

• "My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes." - Life, the Universe, and Everything

• Ford: "Life," he said, "is like a grapefruit."
  creature: "Er, how so?"
  Ford: "Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast." - So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, c. 23

• "If I had two heads like you, Zaphod, I could have hours of fun banging them against a wall." - The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy Radio Series.

• "Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum!"
  "Ah," said Arthur, "is he. Is he." He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown and looked knowledgably into the distance.
  "What?" said Ford.
  "Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy then, exactly?" - The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy Radio Series Tertiary Phase, Episode 1: Fit the thirteenth (2005)

Marvin (The Paranoid Android)

• "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed."

• Marvin: "And then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side."
  Arthur: "Is that so?"
  Marvin: "Oh yes. I mean I've asked for them to be replaced, but no one ever listens."
  Arthur: "I can imagine" - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit The Second

• "Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I'm standing?" - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit The Second

• Marvin: "I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number."
  Zem: "Er, five."
  Marvin: "Wrong. You see?"
  The mattress was much impressed by this and realised that it was in the presence of a not unremarkable mind. -- Life, the Universe and Everything, c. 9

• "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God I'm so depressed." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 11 [9]

• Trillian: "that's just fine, really... just part of life."
  Marvin:"Life! Don't talk to me about life." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 11 [10]

• "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." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 11 [11]

• "Life," said Marvin dolefully, "loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 20 [12]

• "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. - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 34 [13]

• "I could calculate your chance of survival, but you wouldn't like it." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (movie)

• Zaphod: "Can it Trillian, I'm trying to die with dignity."
  Marvin: "I'm just trying to die." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , Fit The Sixth

• "Was I amongst friends when the Haggunenon admiral evolved into a life pod and everybody aboard his flagship escaped leaving me aboard as it steered itself into the nearest star?
  Was I amongst friends when I was left to walk in circles on a swamp planet?
  Left to park cars outside a restaurant for millenia?
  Left for the Krikkit robots to use for batting practice?
  Friend? I don't think I ever came across one of those, sorry, can't help you there." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit The Twenty-Second

• "[Trillian] is one of the least benightedly unintelligent life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting." - Life, the Universe and Everything, c. 31

• On being left in a parking lot for 500 million years: "The first ten million years were the worst. 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 sort of a decline" - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
• "Ha! What do you know of always? You say 'always' to me, who, because of the silly little errands your organic life forms keep on sending me through time on, am now thirty-seven times older than the Universe itself? Pic your words with a little more care."- So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish

Zaphod Beeblebrox

• "OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?" - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 11 [14]

• "If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 12 [15]

• "I'm so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat inside me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis." - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 6

• "Listen, three eyes,", he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 6

• "Well, just who do you think you are, honey?" flounced the insect quivering its wings in rage, "Zaphod Beeblebrox or something?"
  "Count the heads," said Zaphod in a low rasp.
  The insect blinked at him. It blinked at him again.
  "You are Zaphod Beeblebrox?" it squeaked.
  "Yeah," said Zaphod, "but don't shout it out or they'll all want one."
  "The Zaphod Beeblebrox?"
  "No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox, didn't you hear I come in six packs?"
  "But sir, I heard you were dead."
  "That's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet." - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 6

• "You guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off." - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. ?

• "Hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain." (on being told by the waiter at Milliways that Marvin is on the 'phone from the car park) (- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. ?

• "What do you think I am, completely without any moral whatsits, what are they called, those moral things?" - Young Zaphod Plays it Safe

• "I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer." - ?

• "If I ever meet myself," said Zaphod, "I'll hit myself so hard I won't know what's hit me." - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 8

• The Book: "It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars, and, shortly afterwards, by the issuing of over six and three quarter million writs for damages from all of the major landowners in his Galactic sector. However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself, and there are several possible theories to explain this." — Radio: Fit The Ninth

• 'Yet Unnamed Man': "Beeblebrox, over here!"
  "No," called Zaphod. "Beeblebrox over here! Who are you?"
  "A friend!" Shouted back the man. He ran toward Zaphod.
  "Oh yeah?" said Zaphod. "Anyone's friend in particular, or just generally well-disposed to people?"" - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 6

• It just told me what I already knew, that Im a great and amazing guy, didn't I tell you baby, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Trillian

• "... we have normality, I repeat we have normality." She turned her microphone off - then turned it back on, with a slight smile and continued: "Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem. Please relax. You will be sent for soon." - Trillian, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 11 [16]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (novel)

• 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. - preface [17]

• "What do you mean, why's it got to be built?" he said. "It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses." - Mr Prosser, head builder, c. 1 [18]

• "Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit" - Ancient Orion mining song, c. 1 [19]

• "The mere thought," growled Mr Prosser, "hadn't even begun to speculate," he continued, settling himself back, "about the merest possibility of crossing my mind." - Mr Prosser, head builder, c. 1 [20]

• "Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?" - Mr Prosser, head builder, c. 1 [21]

• He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. - Mr. Prosser, c. 1 [22]

• 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.
  It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. - c. 2 [23]

• The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
  A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
  More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. - c. 3 [24]

• Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.) - c. 3 [25]

• The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. - c. 3 [26]

• "DON'T PANIC." - Words inscribed in large, friendly letters on front cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide (first mentioned in c. 3 [27])

• Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas. - c. 4 [28]

• "Mostly harmless" - c. 6 [29]

• The proof of the non-existence of God, caused by the Babel fish (wikipedia.org article) - c. 6 [30]

• "Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly 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. - c. 8 [31]

• "[...] 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." - A broadcast on sub-etha radio, c. 12 [32]

• "Vell, Zaphod's jist zis guy you know?" - Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod's private brain care specialist, c. 12 [33] (also appears without the heavy accent in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 2)

• 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. - c. 15 [34]

• "This is a recorded announcement, as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit but regrets, that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you. If you would care to leave your name and the address of a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone." - c. 17 [35]

• "We would like to assure you that as soon as our business is resumed announcements will be made in all fashionable magazines and colour supplements, when our clients will once again be able to select from all that's best in contemporary geography." The menace in the voice took on a sharper edge. "Meanwhile we thank our clients for their kind interest and would ask them to leave. Now." - c. 17 [36]

• "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." - c. 17 [37]

• He [Arthur] had an odd feeling of being like a man in the act of adultery who is surprised when the woman's husband wanders into the room, changes his trousers, passes a few idle remarks about the weather and leaves again. - c. 22 [38]

• For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons. - c. 23 [39]

• Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind of the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived. - c. 23 [40]

• [...] in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish. - Final message from the Dolphins, as they escape just prior to Earth's destruction, c. 23 [41]

• Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity - distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. - c. 24 [42]

• "That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" - Vroomfondel, a philosopher, c. 25 [43]

• "I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!" - Vroomfondel, a philosopher, c. 25 [44]

• "Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. - The answer to the Great Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, c. 27 [45]

• "[...] I'd far rather be happy than right any day." - Slartibartfast, c. 30 [46]

• It said: 'The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.
  "For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat? and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?" - c. 35 [47] (A very similar quote appears in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, c. 20)

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

• 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. - preface

• In the beginning the Universe was created.
  This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - c. 1 [48]

• "Share and Enjoy" is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years. - c. 2

• "I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?" - The Dish of the Day serving itself, c. 17

• "Er..." he said, "hello. Er, look, I'm sorry I'm a bit late. I've had the most ghastly time, all sorts of things cropping up at the last moment."
  He seemed nervous of the expectant awed hush. He cleared his throat.
  "Er, how are we for time?" he said, "have I just got a min-"
  And so the Universe ended. - The Great Prophet Zarquon, c. 18

• 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. - c. 19

• The ship was rocking and swaying sickeningly as Ford and Zaphod tried to wrest control from the autopilot. The engines howled and whined like tired children in a supermarket. - c. 20

• On Earth – when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass – the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm's way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another – particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish. - c. 22

• The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. 'Make it evil,' he'd been told. 'Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with.' - c. 23

• "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?" - The Ruler of the Universe, c. 29

• [...] "one's never alone with a rubber duck." - Captain of the load of useless bloody loonies from Golgafrincham, c. 32

• To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
  To summarize the summary: anyone capable of getting themselves made President should by no means be allowed to do the job.
  To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

Life, the Universe and Everything

• "There is a moment in every dawn when light floats, there is the possibility of magic. Creation holds its breath.

The moment passed as it regularly did on Sqornshellous Zeta, without incident." - c. 7

• "He sat up sharply and started to pull his clothes on. He decided that there must be someone in the Universe feeling more wretched, miserable, and forsaken than himself, and he determined to set out and find him.

Halfway to the bridge it occurred to him that it might be Marvin and he returned to bed." - Zaphod, shortly after meeting the man who rules the Universe, accomplishing his life's goal, and finding that one thing ceased to lead to another. c. 9

• "It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." - c. 24

• "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." - Arthur, before nearly destroying the Universe. c. 33

• "Ford spoke slowly and distinctly, as if he was addressing someone from a telephone company accounts department." - c. ?

So Long And Thanks for All the Fish

• The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizable number 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. - c. ?

• "This Arthur Dent," comes the cry from the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and has even now been found inscribed on a deep space probe thought to originate from an alien galaxy at a distance too hideous to contemplate, "what is he, man or mouse? Is he interested in nothing more than tea and the wider issues of life? Has he no spirit? Has he no passion? Does he not, to put it in a nutshell, fuck?"
  Those who wish to know should read on. Others may wish to skip on to the last chapter which is a good bit and has Marvin in it. - c. 25

• The sign said:
  Hold stick near centre 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 packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.' - c. 31; Wonko the Sane telling Arthur and Fenchurch about the Asylum

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [...] says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that 'it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.'
  'In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.' - c. 35

• "We apologise for the inconvenience", God's Final Message to His Creation, written in letters of fire on the side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains, Sevorbeupstry, on planet Preliumtarn, Galactic Sector QQ7 Active J Gamma. - c. 40 (the message is spelled out letter by letter over several paragraphs)

• "I think [...] I feel good about it." - c. 40; the last words of Marvin, about God's Final Message to His Creation.

• "Mark Knopfler has an extraordinary ability to make a Schecter Custom Stratocaster hoot and sing like angels on a Saturday night, exhausted from being good all week and needing a stiff beer." Adam's Description of the guitar on the Dire Straits track "Tunnel of Love"

Mostly Harmless

• One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. -c. ?

• 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 or repair. - c. ?

• The universe is a lot more complicated than you might think even if you start from a position of thinking that its pretty damn complicated to begin with. - Mostly Harmless, The Guide, Mark II, c. ?

• The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79. - c. ?

• The thing he realized about the windows was this: because they had been converted into openable windows after they had first been designed to be impregnable, they were, in fact, much less secure than if they had been designed as openable windows in the first place. - c. ?

• It wasn't merely that their left hand didn't always know what their right hand was doing, so to speak; quite often their right hand had a pretty hazy notion as well. - c. 14

• A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. - c. ?

• Old Thrashbarg was surprised at how many spaceship crashes he now had to weave into his stories to keep everyone from rushing off to watch Random's wrist. - c. ?

• 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 thing like, "Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How's Carol?" invoves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the comtemplation of the chaos through which they see the and world tumble. So give your kid a break, okay? - c. ?; Extract from Practical Parenting in a Fractally Demented Universe

Radio Series

• The history of every major galactic civilization has passed through three distinct and recognisable phases: those of survival, inquiry, and sophistication. Otherwise known as the ‘How’, ‘Why’, and ‘Where’ phases. For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question: “How can we eat?” The second by the question: “Why do we eat?” And the third by the question: “Where should we have lunch?” The history of warfare is similarly subdivided though here the phases are retribution, anticipation, and diplomacy. Thus, retribution: “I’m going to kill you because you killed my brother.” Anticipation: “I’m going to kill you because I killed your brother.” And diplomacy: “I’m going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that your brother did it.” Meanwhile, the Earthman Arthur Dent, to whom all this can be of only academic interest, as his only brother was long ago nibbled to death by an okapi, is about to be plunged into a real intergalactic war. - Fit the Sixth.

• The other Shaltanac's joopleberry shrub is always a more mauvy shade of pinky-russet. - The Shaltanac equivalent of "the other man's grass is always greener", Fit the Seventh

• 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 curent circumstances seems more likely):
  Consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer. - Fit the Eighth

Miscellaneous

• Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner. - (From the TV Series, 1st Episode)

• "PANIC" - Words inscribed in small, alarming letters on front cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide Mk. 2

• "OK, so you think that time flows that way, do you? Interesting." - The Hitchhiker's Guide Mk. 2

• There is an art, or rather, a knack, to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. - c. ?

• "It goes like this. Let's see now: 'Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.' That's it. It's what you pray silently inside yourself anyway, so you may as well have it out in the open."
  Arthur: "Hmmm, Well, thank you - "
  Old Man: "There's another prayer that goes with it that's very important, so you'd better jot this down, too."
  Arthur: "OK."
  Old Man: "It goes, 'Lord, lord, lord...' It's best to put that bit in, just in case. You can never be too sure. 'Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen...' And that's it. Most of the trouble people get into in life comes from missing out that last part.'" - Old Man Oracle's prayer given to Arthur Dent

• "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

• The oracle hit himself on the thumb and began speaking in tongues. - The oracle as he is hammering a nail

• Someone or something seemed to be expecting him, for at that moment there lit up suddenly in the dark distance an eerie green neon sign. It said, silently: YOU HAVE BEEN DIVERTED..., ARTHUR DENT. WELCOME, I DON'T THINK. DO NOT BE ALARMED. BE VERY, VERY FRIGHTENED, ARTHUR DENT. - Eerie green neon sign in Agrajag's mountain

• Old woman Oracle: "Can you help me pull out the photocopier?"
  Arthur: "What?"
  OWO: "The photocopier. It's solar-powered, but I have to keep it in the cave so the birds don't shit on it." - c. ?

• ...and he would then enter the long dark teatime of the soul. - (about Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged)

• Trillian: "We have normality..."
  Arthur: "Normality? We can talk about normality until the cows come home."
  Ford: "What's normal?"
  Trillian: "What's home?"
  Zaphod: "What're cows?" - after deactivating the Infinite Improbability Drive (Movie)

• Deep Thought: "The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is..."
  Philosophers:"Yes?..."
  Deep Thought:"IS..."
  Philosophers (slightly higher):"Yes?..."
  Deep Thought: "IS..."
  Philosophers (really high):"Yes?..."
  Deep Thought: 42.
  Philosopher 1:"We are gonna get lynched y'know that?"

• "Where God Went Wrong," "Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes," "Who is this God Person Anyway?" and "Well that about Wraps it up for God." - The four books on God by 'Oolon Colluphid'

See also

• Douglas Adams
• List of films
• Television shows

External links

he:מדריך הטרמפיסט לגלקסיה hu:Galaxis útikalauz stopposoknak pl:Autostopem przez Galaktykę pt:Marvin, o Andróide Paranóide

sv:Liftarens guide till galaxen

bs:Autostoperski vodić kroz galaksiju

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