The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)

by Douglas Adams

If they don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

Arthur prodded the mattress nervously and then sat on it himself: in fact he had very little to be nervous about, because all mattresses grown in the swamps of Sqornshellous Zeta are very thoroughly killed and dried before being put to service. Very few have ever come to life again.

He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle whilst fighting off a pack of wolves.

‘The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.” ‘“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.” ‘“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. ‘“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor – at least no one worth speaking of.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance.

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. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.

He gestured Arthur towards a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the ribcage of a stegosaurus. ‘It was made out of the ribcage of a stegosaurus,’ explained the old man

either you all give yourselves up now and let us beat you up a bit, though not very much of course because we are firmly opposed to needless violence,