Great Throughts Treasury

"Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone."

"Getting a movie made in Hollywood is like trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it."

"Ghastly, continued Marvin, it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door, he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure. 'All the doors in his spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.' As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sighlike quality to it. Hummmmmmmyummmmmmmah! it said."

"God's Final Message to His Creation: 'We apologize for the inconvenience."

"Good evening, it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body? It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters into a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them. Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox. Something off the shoulder perhaps? suggested the animal. Braised in a white wine sauce? Er, your shoulder? said Arthur in a horrified whisper. But naturally my shoulder, sir, mooed the animal contentedly, nobody else's is mine to offer. Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal's shoulder appreciatively. Or the rump is very good, murmured the animal. I've been exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there's a lot of good meat there. It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again. Or a casserole of me perhaps? it added. You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it? whispered Trillian to Ford. Me? said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes. I don't mean anything. That's absolutely horrible, exclaimed Arthur, the most revolting thing I've ever heard. What's the problem, Earthman? said Zaphod, now transferring his attention to the animal's enormous rump.I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing there inviting me to, said Arthur. It's heartless. Better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten, said Zaphod. That's not the point, Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. All right, he said, maybe it is the point. I don't care, I'm not going to think about it now. I'll just ... er ... The Universe raged about him in its death throes. I think I'll just have a green salad, he muttered. May I urge you to consider my liver? asked the animal, it must be very rich and tender by now, I've been force-feeding myself for months. A green salad, said Arthur emphatically. A green salad? said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur. Are you going to tell me, said Arthur, that I shouldn't have green salad? Well, said the animal, I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am. It managed a very slight bow. Glass of water please, said Arthur. Look, said Zaphod, we want to eat, we don't want to make a meal of the issues. Four rare steaks please, and hurry. We haven't eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years. The animal staggered to its feet. It gave a mellow gurgle. A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. Very good, it said. I'll just nip off and shoot myself. He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur. Don't worry, sir, he said, I'll be very humane. It waddled unhurriedly off to the kitchen. A matter of minutes later the waiter arrived with four huge steaming steaks."

"Good, said Arthur. See? said Ford. No, said Arthur."

"Goosnargh, said Ford Prefect, which was a special Betelgeusian word he used when he knew he should say something but didn't know what it should be."

"Gordon Way's astonishment at being suddenly shot dead was nothing compared to his astonishment at what happened next."

"Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this."

"Having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around."

"Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned, Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see in infrared, How I hate the night. He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night."

"He actually caught himself saying things like Yippee, as he pranced ridiculously round the house."

"He almost danced to the fridge, found the three least hairy things in it, put them on a plate and watched them intently for two minutes. Since they made no attempt to move within that time he called them breakfast and ate them. Between them they killed a virulent space disease he'd picked up without knowing it in the Flargathon Gas Swamps a few days earlier, which otherwise would have killed off half the population of the Western Hemisphere, blinded the other half, and driven everyone else psychotic and sterile, so the Earth was lucky there."

"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which."

"He didn't know why he had become president of the galaxy, except that it seemed a fun thing to be."

"He didn't like to think of himself as the sort of person who giggled or sniggered, but he had to admit that he had been giggling and sniggering almost continuously for well over half an hour now."

"He felt a spasm of excitement because he knew instinctively who it was, or at least knew who it was he wanted it to be, and once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is."

"He felt like an old sponge steeped in paraffin and left in the sun to dry."

"He felt momentarily deflated and said, "Er..." by way of self-introduction, but it didn't get the boy's attention. He didn't like this. The kid was deliberately and maliciously watching television at him."

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."

"He giggled and sniggered. He would have laughed out loud but he didn't have the room."

"He had a nasty feeling that that might be an idiotic thing t do, but he did it anyway, and sure enough it had turned out to be an idiotic thing to do. You live and learn. At any rate, you live"

"He had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his "Zen" method of navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both."

"He had got himself a life. Now he had to find a purpose in it."

"He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts."

"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."

"He inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way down it, which was true."

"He learned to communicate with birds and discovered their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with windspeed, wingspans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries."

"He picked up the letter Q and hurled it into a distant privet bush where it hit a young rabbit. The rabbit hurtled off in terror and didn’t stop till it was set upon and eaten by a fox which choked on one of its bones and died on the bank of a stream which subsequently washed it away. During the following weeks Ford Perfect swallowed his pride and struck up a relationship with a girl who had been a personnel officer on Golgafrincham, and he was terribly upset when she suddenly passed away as a result of drinking water from a pool that had been polluted by the body of a dead fox."

"He spent a lot of time flying. He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered, once you have learnt bird-speak you quickly come to realize that the air is full of it the whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away from it."

"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 arm out wide. I will go mad! he announced."

"He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball."

"He thought that if humans practiced continuously open and close his mouth, ran the risk of the brain begin to work."

"He turned slowly like a fridge door opening."

"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot."

"He was a man who was charged with the work he did in life because he was not one to ask questions - not so much on account of any natural quality of discretion as because he simply could never think of any questions to ask... On the strength of which he had guaranteed himself regular employment for as long as he cared to live."

"He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left."

"He would have felt safe if alongside the Dentrassis' underwear, the piles of Sqornshellous mattresses and the man from Betelgeuse holding up a small yellow fish and offering to put it in his ear he had been able to see just a small packet of cornflakes. But he couldn't, and he didn't feel safe."

"Here, for whatever reason, is the world. And here it stays. With me on it."

"Hey, er ... said Zaphod, what's your name? The man looked at them doubtfully. I don't know. Why, do you think I should have one? It seems very odd to give a bundle of vague sensory perceptions a name."

"Hey, this is terrific! he 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?"

"Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."

"High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse."

"His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn't got anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw, his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered around in an aimless fashion. For a second or so the brain tried to catch the left hand without letting go of the mouth and simultaneously tried to think about what was buried in the ice, which is probably why the legs went and Arthur dropped restfully to the ground."

"Holy Zarquon, did I ask for an existentialist elevator?"

"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?"

"How do you feel? he asked him. Like a military academy, said Arthur. Bits of me keep on passing out."

"How do you know you're having fun if there's no one watching you have it?"

"How many roads must a man walk down?"

"How to Leave the Planet: 1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it’s very important that you get away as soon as possible. 2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House—(202) 456-1414—to have a word on your behalf with the guys at NASA. 3. If you don’t have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don’t have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try. 4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible. 5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it’s vitally important that you get away before your phone bill arrives."