The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
(London: Macmillan, 2009)
The idea for the title first cropped up while I was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1971.
Page xi.
My pet project was to write something that would combine comedy and science fiction, and it was this obsession that drove me into deep debt and despair.
Page xiii.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it ahs the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on the cover.
Page 6.
Fifteen years was a long time to get stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mindboggingly dull as the Earth.
Page 14.
Ford Prefect was a roving researcher for that wholly remarkable book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Page 14.
The best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.
Page 21.
“This must be Thursday … I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”
Page 24.
The contents of Ford Prefect’s satchel were quite interesting, in fat, and would have made any earth physicist’s eyes pop out of his head, which is why he always concealed them by keeping a couple of dog-eared scripts for plays he pretended he was auditioning for stuffed in the top.
Page 25.
In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simple communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth.
Page 28.
“I’ll have you hung, draws and quartered! And boiled … until … until … until you’ve had enough.”
Page 30.
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
Page 32.
One of the side effects of work on the Heart of Gold was a whole string of pretty meaningless coincidences.
Page 35.
Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippy, good-timer, (crooks? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.
Page 36.
Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle upon which the Galaxy was governed.
Page 36.
A Hooloovoo is a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue.
Page 38.
An orange sash was what the President of the Galaxy traditionally wore.
Page 38.
Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.
Page 38.
Zaphod loved effect: it was what he was best at.
Page 38.
He was roughly humanoid in appearance except for the extra head and third arm.
Page 39.
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious.
Page 46.
All mattresses grown in the swamps of Sqorshellou Zeta are very thoroughly killed and dried before being put to service.
Page 49.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a sort of electronic book. It tells you everything you need to know about anything. That’s its job.”
Page 49.
“On no account allow a Vogon to read poetry at you.”
Page 50.
“You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy’s a fun place. You’ll need to have this fish in your ear.”
Page 52.
“The poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
Page 56.
Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria.
Page 59.
Whatever Zaphod’s qualities of mind might include - dash, bravado, conceit - he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life was that he never really understood the significance of anything he did.
Page 81.
“Sensational new breakthrough in Improbability Physics. As soon as the ship’s drive reaches Infinite Improbability it passes through every pint in the Universe.”
Page 84.
One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn’t be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was gong on, and really being genuinely stupid.
Page 89.
He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous.
Page 93.
It’s crew of four were all at ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics - as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.
Pages 97-98.
There would be no point in asking Zaphod, he never appeared to have a reason for anything he did at all: he had turned unfathomability into an art form. He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naïve incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
Page 99.
Even the most seasoned star tramp can’t help but shiver at the spectacular drama of a sunrise seen from space, but a binary sunrise is one of the marvels of the Galaxy.
Page 104.
“It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.”
Page 119.
Human beings were only the third most intelligent life form present on the planet Earth.
Page 119.
Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers.
Page 120.
“I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions.”
Page 126.
The dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for titbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.
Page 136.
In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running round inside wheels and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.
Pages 136-137.
Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting.
Page 139.
“Earthman, the planet you lived on was commissioned, paid for, and run by mice it was destroyed five minutes begore the completion of the purpose for which it was built, and we’ve got to build another one.”
Page 142.
“These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front.”
Page 142.
“Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research program.”
Page 143.
“We haven’t even finished burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons in the crust yet.”
Page 151.
“Do you want me to kick you?” said Ford.
“Would it give you a lot of pleasure?” said Zaphod, blearily.
“No.”
“Nor me. So what’s the point?”
Pahe 159.
“That’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe ha that.”
Page 164.
“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.”
Page 165.
“Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”
Page 165.
If there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.
Page 172.
“Now, listen to this, Beeblebrox, and you better listen good!”
“Why?” shouted back Zaphod.
“Because,” shouted the cop, “it’s going to be very intelligent, and quite interesting, and humane!”
Pages 177-178.
“The history of every major galactic civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.”
Page 184.