Let's be straight here. If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce...
Let's be straight here. If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce...
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."
The Guide 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.
"My capacity for happiness," he added, "you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first." —Marvin
The alien ship was already thundering toward the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void that separates the very few things there are in the Universe from one another.
"You stay there," said Ford, "and you'll soon be recaptured and have your conditional chip replaced. You want to stay happy, come now."
The robot let out a long heartfelt sigh of impassioned tristesse and sank reluctantly away from the ceiling.
All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him.
Anything can be real. Every imaginable thing is happening somewhere along the dimensional axis. These things happen a billion times over with exactly the same outcome and no one learns anything. Whatever a person can think, imagine, wish for, or believe has already come to pass. Dreams come true all the time, just not for the dreamers.
What's so unpleasant about being drunk?
Ask a glass of water.
"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."
The doors of the elevator slid open to reveal a large posse of security guards and robots poised waiting for it and brandishing filthy-looking weapons.
They ordered him out.
With a shrug he stepped forward. They all pushed rudely past him into the elevator, which took them down to continue their search for him on the lower levels.
This was fun, thought Ford ... .
"Life," said Marvin dolefully, "loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
"Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal."
"I'm looking for someone."
"Who?" hissed the insect.
"Zaphod Beeblebrox," said Marvin, "he's over there."
The insect shook with rage. It could hardly speak.
"Then why did you ask me?"
"I just wanted something to talk to," said Marvin.
"What!"
"Pathetic, isn't it?"
"My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre," Ford muttered to himself, "and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes."
Babel Fish - The Oddest Thing In The Universe - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
"Er..." Zarquon 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.
On no account allow a Vogon to read poetry at you.
"We apologize for the inconvenience." God's Final Message to His Creation, written in letters of fire on the side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains.
"I think," Marvin murmured at last, from deep within his corroding rattling thorax, "I feel good about it."
The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.
"Don't worry. I've been in show business for years; I know how to handle bastards."—Zaphod Beeblebrox