"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."
— Elie Wiesel

"They shrugged at each other. Fook composed himself. "O Deep Thought computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us...." he paused, "The Answer."
"The Answer?" said Deep Thought. "The Answer to what?"
"Life!" urged Fook.
"The Universe!" said Lunkwill.
"Everything!" they said in chorus.
Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection.
"Tricky," he said finally.
"But can you do it?"
Again, a significant pause.
"Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it."
"There is an answer?" said Fook with breathless excitement.
"Yes," said Deep Thought. "Life, the Universe, and Everything. There is an answer. But, I'll have to think about it."
Ford glanced impatiently at his watch.
"How long?" he said.
"Seven and a half million years."
Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other.
"Seven and a half million years!" they cried in chorus.
"Yes." said Deep Thought.

[Seven and a half million years later.... Fook and Lunkwill are long gone, but their ancestors continue what they started]

"We are the ones who will hear," said Phouchg, "the answer to the great question of Life....!"
"The Universe...!" said Loonquawl.
"And Everything...!"
"Shhh," said Loonquawl with a slight gesture. "I think Deep Thought is preparing to speak!"
There was a moment's expectant pause while panels slowly came to life on the front of the console. Lights flashed on and off experimentally and settled down into a businesslike pattern. A soft low hum came from the communication channel.

"Good Morning," said Deep Thought at last.
"Er..good morning, O Deep Thought" said Loonquawl nervously, "do you have...er, that is..."
"An Answer for you?" interrupted Deep Thought majestically. "Yes, I have."
The two men shivered with expectancy. Their waiting had not been in vain.
"There really is one?" breathed Phouchg.
"There really is one," confirmed Deep Thought.
"To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe and everything?"
"Yes."
Both of the men had been trained for this moment, their lives had been a preparation for it, they had been selected at birth as those who would witness the answer, but even so they found themselves gasping and squirming like excited children.
"And you're ready to give it to us?" urged Loonsuawl.
"I am."
"Now?"
"Now," said Deep Thought.
They both licked their dry lips.
"Though I don't think," added Deep Thought. "that you're going to like it."
"Doesn't matter!" said Phouchg. "We must know it! Now!"
"Now?" inquired Deep Thought.
"Yes! Now..."
"All right," said the computer, and settled into silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable.
"You're really not going to like it," observed Deep Thought.
"Tell us!"
"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."
"Yes..!"
"Of Life, the Universe and Everything..." said Deep Thought.
"Yes...!"
"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.
"Yes...!"
"Is..."
"Yes...!!!...?"
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm."
— Douglas Adams (Life, the Universe and Everything)

"If there were two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins more? I bet you'd say Flippy, wouldn't you?

But you would be wrong. It's Hambone."
— Jack Handey

"And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love."
— Sue Monk Kidd

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm patriotic enough. Yes, I want to kill people, but on both sides."
— Jack Handey (Deep Thoughts)

"Friends are quiet Angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly."
— Random Chain Mail

"I think there probably should be a rule that if you're talking about how many loaves of bread a bullet will go through, it's understood that you mean lengthwise loaves. Otherwise, it makes no sense."
— Jack Handey

"The peace of God is that eternal calm which, like the cushion of the sea, lies far too deep down to be reached by any external trouble or disturbance; and he who enters into the presence of God becomes a partaker of that undisturbed and undisturbable calm."
— A.J. Pierson

"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.
An all plans, safeguards, policies and coercion are fruitless.
We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us."
— John Steinbeck

"And every time the Takers stamp out a Leaver culture, a wisdom ultimately tested since the birth of mankind disappears from the world beyond recall."
— Daniel Quinn (Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit)

"For-soothe my aching soul that is my wind, set hearts from there cages to fall a sinking sound. And the light shall purify and a feild of love will open up a new world."
— Jeremiah Wilson

"The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone."
— Johann Georg Hamann

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will,not mine,shall be done.
Amen."
— Boston Higher Power

"You shouldn't have to settle for rabbits if what you want is deer"
— Daniel Quinn (Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit)

"I'm the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN't imaginary."
— Alan Moore (Promethea: Book Five)

"My family was something precious, like jewelry, like a necklace you never take off."
— Indira Ganesan (Inheritance)

"I've seen golems. They don't behave like a real person."
— Diana Wynne Jones (The Year of the Griffin)

""We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.""
— Anais Nin

"He talks about God, and loving God. he says that when we open to loving a person, whether that person is a spouse, friend, or child, we open our hearts to loving God. He says when we let someone love us, we're opening our hearts to god's love. he says the acts are the same. p 19
I decide loving isn't for the fain. Its for the courageous. p 19"
— Melody Beattie (The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take)