The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Trilogy in Five Parts

by Douglas Adams

The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm’s way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another – particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

‘Eddies,’ said Ford, ‘in the space–time continuum.’ ‘Ah,’ nodded Arthur, ‘is he? Is he?’

The party and the Krikkit warship looked, in their writhings, a little like two ducks, one of which is trying to make a third duck inside the second duck, whilst the second duck is trying very hard to explain that it doesn’t feel ready for a third duck right now, is uncertain that it would want any putative third duck to be made by this particular first duck anyway, and certainly not whilst it, the second duck, was busy flying.

Eventually they realized that this was something they were going to have to sort out, and they passed a law decreeing that anyone who had to carry a weapon as part of his normal Silastic work (policemen, security guards, primary-school teachers, etc.) had to spend at least forty-five minutes every day punching a sack of potatoes in order to work off his or her surplus aggression.

Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion was the better part of valour, so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a cupboard.

wetter than an otter in a washing machine,

‘Would you please,’ he said, ‘let go of the handbrake?’

They were not the same eyes with which he had last looked out at this particular scene, and the brain which interpreted the images the eyes resolved was not the same brain. There had been no surgery involved, just the continual wrenching of experience.

The bottom room, which he had seen briefly before, was pretty rough and full of junk. A large old cast-iron mangle stood there, a surprising number of kitchen sinks were piled in a corner.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I shall have to remember,’ she added, ‘that you are the sort of person who cannot hold on to a simple piece of paper for two minutes without winning a raffle with it.’

one so often hurts the one one loves, especially if one is a Fuolornis Fire Dragon with breath like a rocket booster and teeth like a park fence.

‘Thank you,’ said Ford, ‘thank you very much. Have you . . .’ he said, and fell asleep for three hours. ‘. . . the faintest idea,’ he continued suddenly, when he revived,

‘Odd,’ said Arthur, ‘I thought you said it was a democracy.’ ‘I did,’ said Ford. ‘It is.’ ‘So,’ said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, ‘why don’t people get rid of the lizards?’ ‘It honestly doesn’t occur to them,’ said Ford. ‘They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.’

it was the ineffable will of Bob, and when they asked him what ineffable meant he said look it up.

He had had a nasty feeling that that might be an idiotic thing to do, but he did it anyway, and sure enough it had turned out to be an idiotic thing to do.

‘Mmm,’ ate Arthur.