"`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call 
attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling 
anyone or anything.'
`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 torch.'
`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".'"

- Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning 
department. 
%
"`Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.'
`Very deep,' said Arthur, `you should send that in to the 
"Reader's Digest". They've got a page for people like you.'"

- Ford convincing Arthur to drink three pints in ten 
minutes at lunchtime. 
%
"`This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking 
low over his beer, `I never could get the hang of 
Thursdays.'" 

- Arthur, on what was to be his last Thursday on Earth. 
%
"Pages one and two [of Zaphod's presidential speech] had 
been salvaged by a Damogran Frond Crested Eagle and had 
already become incorporated into an extraordinary new form 
of nest which the eagle had invented. It was constructed 
largely of papier mache and it was virtually impossible for 
a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of it. The Damogran 
Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of 
the species but wanted no truck with it." 

- An example of Damogran wildlife. 
%
"`How do you feel?' he asked him.
`Like a military academy,' said Arthur, `bits of me keep 
passing out.'" ....
`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.'

- Arthur after his first ever teleport ride. 
%
"`The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick 
your finger down his throat...'" 

- The Book, on one of the Vogon's social inadequacies. 
%
"`You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. 
It's unpleasently like being drunk.'
`What's so unpleasent about being drunk?'
`You ask a glass of water.'"

- Arthur getting ready for his first jump into hyperspace. 
%
"`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 from 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.'"

- Arthur coping with certain death as best as he could. 
%
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" 

- Arthur experiences the improbability drive at work. 
%
"`I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very 
depressed.'"
"`Life, don't talk to me about life.'"
"`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.'"
"`I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my 
left side.'"

- Guess who. 
%
"`If there's anything more important than my ego around, I 
want it caught and shot now.'" 

- Zaphod. 
%
"`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 Aplha Centauri.'" 

- The Book getting all nostalgic. 
%
"`Hey this is terrific!' Zaphod said. `Someone down there 
is trying to kill us!'
`Terrific,' said Arthur.
`But don't you see what this means?'
`Yes. We are going to die.'
`Yes, but apart from that.'
`APART from that?'
`It means we must be on to something!'
`How soon can we get off it?'"

- Zaphod and Arthur in a certain death situation over 
Magrathea. 
%
"And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very 
fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a 
big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... 
ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground!
I wonder if it will be friends with me?" 

- For the sperm whale, it wasn't. 
%
"Oh no, not again." 

- A bowl of petunias on it's way to certain death. 
%
"`Er, hey Earthman...'
`Arthur,' said Arthur.
`Yeah, could you just sort of keep this robot with you and 
guard this end of the passageway. OK?'
`Guard?' said Arthur. `What from? You just said there's no 
one here.'
`Yeah, well, just for safety, OK?' said Zaphod.
`Whose? Yours or mine?'"

- Arthur drawing the short straw on Magrathea. 
%
"There are of course many problems connected with life, of 
which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?' 
`Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the 
intervening time wearing digital watches?'" 

- The Book. 
%
"`Right,' said Ford, `I'm going to have a look.'
He glanced round at the others.
`Is no one going to say, "No you can't possibly, let me go 
instead"?'
They all shook their heads.
`Oh well.'"

- Ford attempting to be heroic whilst being seiged by 
Shooty and Bangbang. 
%
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a 
lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad 
move." - The Book just racapping what happened in the last 
book. 
"`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.'" 

- Zaphod being cool. 
%
"`You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?'
`Yeah,' said Zaphod, `but don't shout it out or they'll all 
want one.'
`THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?'
`No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn't you hear I come in 
six packs?'
`But sir,' it squealed, `I just heard on the sub-ether 
radio report. It said you were dead...'
`Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet.'"

- Zaphod and the Guide's receptionist. 
%
"The fronting for the eighty-yard long marble-topped bar 
had been made by stitching together nearly twenty thousand 
Antarean Mosaic Lizard skins, despite the fact that the 
twenty thousand lizards concerned had needed them to keep 
their insides in." 

- The Book decribing Milliways' politically incorrect 
decor. 
%
"`...and the Universe,' continued the waiter, determined 
not to be deflected on his home stretch, `will explode 
later for your pleasure.'
Ford's head swivelled slowly towards him. He spoke with 
feeling.
`Wow,' he said, `What sort of drinks do you serve in this 
place?'
The waiter laughed a polite little waiter's laugh.
`Ah,' he said, `I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me.'
`Oh, I hope not,' breathed Ford."

- Ford in paradise. 
%
"Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar 
and bought most of it." 

- Zaphod in paradise. 
%
"`Maybe somebody here tipped off the Galactic Police,' said 
Trillian. `Everybody saw you come in.'
`You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?' said 
Zaphod, `Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm 
cornered.'
`Yeah,' said a voice from under the table [Ford's now 
completely rat- arsed at this point], `you go to pieces so 
fast people get hit by the shrapnel.'"

- Zaphod getting paranoid over a phone call. 
%
"`Hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain.'
The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in 
confusion.
`I beg your pardon, sir?' he said.
`The phone, waiter,' said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. 
`Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't 
fall off.'"

- Zaphod discovers that waiters are the least hip people 
in the Universe. 
%
"The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford 
nevertheless weaved his way through it." 

- Ford making his way out of Milliways whilst under the 
influence of enough alchol to make a rhino sing. 
%
"`The first ten million years were the worst,' said Marvin, 
`and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The 
third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went 
into a bit of a decline.'" 

- Marvin reflecting back on his 576,000,003,579 year 
career as Milliways' car park attendent. 
%
"`Incidentally,' he said, `what does teleport mean?'
Another moment passed.
Slowly, the others turned to face him.
`Probably the wrong moment to ask,' said Arthur, `It's just 
I remember you use the word a short while ago and I only 
bring it up because...'
`Where,' said Ford quietly, `does it say teleport?'
`Well, just over here in fact,' said Arthur, pointing at a 
dark control box in the rear of the cabin, `Just under the 
word "emergency", above the word "system" and beside the 
sign saying "out of order".'"

- Arthur finding an escape route from a certain death 
situation. 
%
"I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg."

- A poem about matter transference beams. 
%
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President 
should on no account be allowed to do the job." 

- Some wisdom from The Book. 
%
"`We've got to find out what people want from fire, how 
they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.'
The crowd were tense. They were expecting something 
wonderful from Ford.
`Stick it up your nose,' he said.
`Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,' 
insisted the girl, `Do people want fire that can be fitted 
nasally?'"

- Ford "debating" what to do with fire with a marketing 
girl. 
%
"The story goes that I first had the idea for THHGTTG while 
lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck (or `Spain' as the BBC 
TV publicity department authorititively has it, probably 
because it's easier to spell)." - Foreward by DNA. 

FORD 	Six pints of bitter. And quickly please, the 
world's about to
	end.
BARMAN	Oh yes, sir? Nice weather for it.
%
BOOK	Meanwhile, the starship has landed on the surface 
of Magrathea
	and Trillian is about to make one of the most 
important
	statements of her life. Its importance is not 
immediately
	recognised by her companions.
TRILL.	Hey, my white mice have escaped.
ZAPHOD	Nuts to your white mice.
%
BOOK	...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 believed themselves to be more intelligent 
than man for
	precisely the same reasons.
%
ARTHUR	What is an Algolian Zylatburger anyway?
FORD	They're a kind of meatburger made from the most 
unpleasant parts
	of a creature well known for its total lack of any 
pleasant
	parts.
ARTHUR	So you mean that the Universe does actually end not 
with a bang
	but with a Wimpy?

- Cut dialogue from Fit the Fifth. 
%
BOOK	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
	bizarrely inexeplicable.
	There is another theory which states that this has 
already happened.

- Introduction to Fit the Seventh. 
%
FORD	Tell me Arthur...
ARTHUR	Yes?
FORD	This boulder we're stuck under, how big would you 
say it was? Roughly?
ARTHUR	Oh, about the size of Coventry Cathedral.
FORD	Do you think we could move it? (Arthur doesn't 
reply) Just asking.

- Ford and Arthur in a tricky situation, Fit the Eighth. 
%
BOOK	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.

- Comforting advice for Ford and Arthur in this current 
situation, Fit the Eighth. 
%
ZAPHOD	Hey, this rock...
FORD	Marble...
ZAPHOD	Marble...
FORD	Ice-covered marble...
ZAPHOD	Right... it's as slippery as... as... What's the 
slipperiest
	thing you can think of?
FORD	At the moment? This marble.
ZAPHOD	Right. This marble is as slippery as this marble.

- Zaphod and Ford trying to get a grip on things in 
Brontitall, Fit the Tenth. 
%
ARTHUR	It's not a question of whose habitat it is, it's a 
question of
	how hard you hit it.

- Arthur pointing out one of the disadvantages of gravity, 
Fit the Tenth. 
%
ARTHUR	It probably seems a terrible thing to say, but you 
know what I
	sometimes think would be useful in these situations?
LINT.	What?
ARTHUR	A gun of some sort.
LINT.2	Will this help?
ARTHUR	What is it?
LINT.2	A gun of some sort.
ARTHUR	Oh, that'll help. Can you make it fire?
LINT.	Er...
F/X	DEAFENING ROAR
LINT.	Yes.

- Arthur and the Lintillas gaining the upper hand, Fit the 
Twelfth. 
%
"He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the 
fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the 
rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arms out wide. `I 
will go mad!' he announced." 

- Arthur discovering a way of coping with life on 
Prehistoric Earth. 
%
"`... then I decided that I was a lemon for a couple of 
weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and 
out of a gin and tonic.'
Arthur cleared his throat, and then did it again.
`Where,' he said, `did you...?'
`Find a gin and tonic?' said Ford brightly. `I found a 
small lake that thought it was a gin and tonic, and jumped 
in and out of that. At least, I think it thought it was a 
gin and tonic.'
`I may,' he addded with a grin which would have sent sane 
men scampering into the trees, `have been imagining it.'"

- Ford updating Arthur about what he's been doing for the 
past four years. 
%
"`Eddies,' said Ford, `in the space-time continuum.'
`Ah,' nodded Arthur, `is he? Is he?'"

- Arthur failing in his first lesson of galactic physics 
in four years. 
%
"Ford grabbed him by the lapels of his dressing gown and 
spoke to him as slowly and distinctly and patiently as if 
he were somebody from a telephone company accounts 
department." 

- Ford trying to rectify that situation. 
%
"...[Arthur] leapt to his feet like an author hearing the 
phone ring..." 

- Who says that the character of Arthur isn't 
autobiographical? 
%
"Arthur's consciousness approached his body as from a great 
distance, and reluctantly. It had had some bad times in 
there. Slowly, nervously, it entered and settled down into 
its accustomed position.
Arthur sat up.
`Where am I?' he said.
`Lord's Cricket Ground,' said Ford.
`Fine,' said Arthur, and his consciousness stepped out 
again for a quick breather. His body flopped back on the 
grass."

- Arthur coping with his return to Earth as best as he 
could. 
%
"`A curse,' said Slartibartfast, `which will engulf the 
Galaxy in fire and destruction, and possibly bring the 
Universe to a premature doom. I mean it,' he added.
`Sounds like a bad time,' said Ford, `with luck I'll be 
drunk enough not to notice.'"

- Ford ensuring everyone knew where his priorities lay. 
%
"`My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland 
and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am 
therefore excused from saving Universes.'" 

- Ford's last ditch attempt to get out of helping 
Slartibartfast. 
%
"Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy of 
THHGTTG. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness.
`Go to it,' it said, `and good luck.'
It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of 
the Universe and ways of coping with that."

- One of the more preferable pieces of advice contained in 
the Guide. 
%
"His eyes seemed to be popping out of his head. He wasn't 
certain if this was because they were trying to see more 
clearly, or if they simply wanted to leave at this point." 

- Arthur trying to see who had diverted him from going to 
a party. 
%
"Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and 
his skeleton the other, whilst his brain tried to work out 
which of his ears it most wanted to crawl out of.
`Bet you weren't expecting to see me again,' said the 
monster, which Arthur couldn't help thinking was a strange 
remark for it to make, seeing as he had never met the 
creature before. He could tell that he hadn't met the 
creature before from the simple fact that he was able to 
sleep at nights." 

- Arthur discovering who had diverted him from going to a 
party. 
%
"`That young girl is one of the least benightedly 
unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound 
lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.'" 

- Marvin's first ever compliment about anybody. 
%
"Arthur hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. 
Then he realised there was a contradiction there and merely 
hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." 

- Arthur realising that he's in a certain death situation 
with a supernova bomb that is shaped like a cricket ball. 
%
"`Credit?' he said. `Aaaargggh...'
These two words are usually coupled together in the Old 
Pink Dog Bar."

- Ford in a spot of bother. 
%
"`...we might as well start with where your hand is now.'
Arthur said, `So which way do I go?'
`Down,' said Fenchurch, `on this occaision.'
He moved his hand.
`Down,' she said, `is in fact the other way.'
`Oh yes.'"

- Arthur trying to discover which part of Fenchurch is 
wrong. 
%
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily 
escaped the chronicler's mind." 

- This line perhaps best sums up the whole book. 
%
"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred 
character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in 
at number 79. ....
When it's fall in New York, the air smells as if someone's 
been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe the 
best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a 
building." 

- Nuff said?? 
%
"`What's been happening here?' he demanded.
`Oh just the nicest things, sir, just the nicest things. 
can I sit on your lap please?'"
"`Colin, I am going to abandon you to your fate.'
`I'm so happy.'"
"`It will be very, very nasty for you, and that's just too 
bad. Got it?'
`I gurgle with pleasure.'"

- Ford and Colin the robot. 
%
"What the hell, he thought, you're only young once, and 
threw himself out of the window. That would at least keep 
the element of surprise on his side." 

- Ford outwitting a Vogon with a rocket launcher by going 
into another certain death situation. 
%
"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." 

- One of the laws of computers and programming revealed. 
%
"`You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for 
insurance company directors?'
`Really?' said Arthur. `No I didn't. For what offence?'
Trillian frowned.
`What do you mean, offence?'
`I see.'"

- Evidence that there will be some justice in the Universe 
eventually. 
%
"`She hit me on the head with the rock again.'
`I think I can confirm that that was my daughter.'
`Sweet kid.'
`You have to get to know her,' said Arthur.
`She eases up does she?'
`No,' said Arthur, `but you get a better sense of when to 
duck.'"

- Ford and Arthur on Random. 
%
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable 
end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small 
unregarded yellow sun. "
%
"Ah, " said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage 
of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of. "
%
"I don't know, " said the voice on the PA, "apathetic 
bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all. "
%
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that 
anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely 
by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the 
final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
"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.'
"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't 
it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you 
exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. 
QED.'
%
"Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done 
not so much for effect as because he was trying to remember 
the sequence of muscle movements. "
%
"OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million 
for good thinking, yeah? "
%
"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. "
%
"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or 
so, nothing continued to happen. "
%
(aikamuotojen käyttö aikamatkustuksessa)
"You can arrive (mayan arivan on-when) for any sitting you 
like without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you 
can book retrospectively, as it were when you return to 
your own time. (you can have on-book haventa forewhen 
presooning returningwenta retrohome.) "
%
"The suit into which the man's body had been stuffed looked 
as if it's only purpose in life was to demonstrate how 
difficult it was to get this sort of body into a suit. "
%
"He dropped his voice still lower. In the stillness, a fly 
would not have dared cleat its throat. " 
%
"And finally, " said Max, quieting the audience down and 
putting on his solemn face, "finally I believe we have with 
us here tonight, a party of believers, very devout 
believers, from the Church of the Second Coming of the 
Great Prophet Zarquon. " ... "There they are, " said Max, 
"sitting there, patiently. He said he'd come again, and 
he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's hope he's 
hurrying fellas, because he's only got eight minutes left! "
%
"As he came into the light they could see his black and 
gold uniform on which the buttons were so highly polished 
that they shone with an intensity that would have made an 
approaching motorist flash his lights in annoyance. " 
%
"You're very sure of your facts, " he said at last, "I 
couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe 
- if there is one - for granted. "
%
"What are you talking about? "
"Never mind, eat the fruit. "
"You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden. 
"
"Eat the fruit. "
"Sounds quite like it too. "
%
"Rome wasn't burned in a day. "
%
"Does it worry you that you don't talk any kind of sense? "
%
"One's never alone with a rubber duck. "
%
"Another world, another day, another dawn. "
%
"He expanded his chest to make it totally clear that here 
was the sort of man you only dared to cross if you had a 
team of Sherpas with you. "
%
"It was real. At least, if it wasn't real, it did support 
them, and as that is what sofas are supposed to do, this, 
by any test that mattered, was a real sofa. "
%
Arthur said, "So which way do I go? "
"Down, " said Fenchurch, "on this occasion. "
He moved his hand.
"Down, " she said, "is in fact the other way. "
"Oh yes. "
%
"You're one hundred percent positive that the ship which is 
crashed on the bottom of this ocean is the ship which you 
said you were one hundred percent positive could one 
hundred percent positively never crash? "
%
"Yes, it's the right planet, all right, " he said again. 
"Right planet, wrong universe. "
%
"Ford had his own code of ethics. It wasn't much of one, 
but it was his and he stuck by it, more or less. One rule 
he made was never to buy his own drinks. He wasn't sure if 
that counted as an ethic, but you have to go with what 
you've got. "
%
"Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole Galaxy 
of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was 
churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just 
two things: the world he was born on and the woman he 
loved. "
%
"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. "
"That's according to your... oh never mind. "
