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

by Douglas Adams

‘This must be Thursday,’ said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, ‘I never could get the hang of Thursdays.’

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months’ consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

‘I like the cover,’ he said. ‘Don’t Panic. It’s the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody’s said to me all day.’

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?

Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thought from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it. Ah…! What’s happening? it thought. Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now…Oh! This is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of…yawning, tingling sensation in my…my…well I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach. Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that…wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do…perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What’s this thing? This…let’s call it a tail – yeah, tail. Hey! I can really thrash it about pretty good, can’t I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! ...

Or is it the wind? There really is a lot of that now, isn’t there? And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like…ow…ound…round…ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me? — And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was, Oh no, not again.

Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

‘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.

‘Forty-two!’ yelled Loonquawl. ‘Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?’ ‘I checked it very thoroughly,’ said the computer, ‘and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.’

‘The mice will see you now,’ he said.

‘Well, that’s bureaucracy for you,’ he added.