Mostly Harmless

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.

"Marvin!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing?" "Don't feel you have to take any notice of me, please," came a muffled drone.

"On no account allow a Vogon to read poetry at you."

"I think we are probably not very well suited," said Gargravarr again at length, "we never seemed to be happy doing the same things. We always had the greatest arguments over sex and fishing. Eventually we tried to combine the two, but that only led to disaster, as you can probably imagine."

Once something actually happens somewhere in something as wildly complicated as the Universe, Kevin knows where it will all end up — where "Kevin" is any random entity that doesn't know nothin' about nothin'.

"It is written in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn, third out from the sun Zarss in Galactic Sector QQ7 Active J Gamma. It is guarded by the Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob."

Somehow it seemed to conform to a pattern that he couldn't see.

Ford shivered, partly with the cold, but partly with the memory of stories his favourite mother used to tell him when he was a mere slip of a Betelgeusian, ankle high to an Arcturan Megagrasshopper

The second non-absolute number is the given time of arrival, which is now known to be one of those most bizarre of mathematical concepts, a recipriversexcluson, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself.

With a tiny movement, Ford brought his Dine-O-Charge credit card up out of his pocket. Arthur noticed that the hand holding it was trembling very slightly.

"But you see, I've felt that before, even stronger. Incredibly strongly. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a one," she said gazing off into the distance, "for sudden startling revelations." Arthur was at sea, could hardly speak, and felt it wiser, therefore, for the moment not to try.

"No," he said at last, "I don't seem to be letting myself into any of my secrets. Still," he added on further reflection, "I can understand that. I wouldn't trust myself further than I could spit a rat."

Zaphod giggled into his drink. It frothed up over the side of the glass and started to eat its way into the marble bar top.

Ford, however, was not happy.

He leapt to his feet and demanded silence. After a while he got it, or at least the best silence he could hope for under the circumstances: the circumstances were that the bagpiper was spontaneously composing a national anthem.

A neutrino is not a big thing to be hit by. In fact it's hard to think of anything much smaller by which one could reasonably hope to be hit.

"Any movies I haven't seen thirty thousand times already?" "No." "Uh."

"Welcome," said Slartibartfast as the tiny speck that was the aircar, travelling now at three times the speed of sound, crept imperceptibly forward into the mindboggling space, "welcome," he said, "to our factory floor."

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.

"Exciting, isn't it?" said an apparition. The apparition wobbled in front of Arthur's eyes, though the truth of the matter is probably that Arthur's eyes were wobbling in front of the apparition. His mouth wobbled as well. "W... w... w... w..." his mouth said.

A huge furry creature bounded through the door with his lunch tray. It was grinning like a maniac. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was delighted. He knew that when a Dentrassi looked that pleased with itself there was something going on somewhere on the ship that he could get very angry indeed about.

"I'm going to kill you anyway!" he roared. "Even if it's a logical impossibility I'm going to zarking well try! I'm going to blow this whole mountain up!" He screamed, "Let's see you get out of this one, Dent!"

The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in the destruction of the planet Earth.

The "operatives" who shot puzzled glances at Ford as he marched on into the depths of the building's most sensitive areas were reassured by the presence of Colin, who was flying along with him in a buzz of emotional fulfilment and easing his path for him at every stage.

"And the other thing," said Ford, "is that you appear to have a bone in your beard." He tossed back his tea.

An intestinal jumble of plumbing had been picked out in gold leaf rather than decently buried at midnight in an unmarked grave; the taps and shower attachment would have made a gargoyle jump.

That evening it was dark early, which was normal for the time of year. It was cold and windy, which was normal. It started to rain, which was particularly normal. A spacecraft landed, which was not.

The Damogran Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of the species but wanted no truck with it.

"This is my last body. My last life. This is my revenge body. My kill-Arthur-Dent body. My last chance. I had to fight to get it, too."

"simple," repeated Zarniwoop, "I discovered the coordinates at which this man could be found — the man who rules the Universe, and discovered that his world was protected by an Improbability Field. To protect my secret — and myself — I retreated to the safety of this totally artificial Universe"