“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in--an interesting hole I find myself in--fits me rather neatly, doesn't it...”

“So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed.The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths.Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actua...”

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of th...”

“There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wr...”

“And then, just when you think that you have experienced all the wonders that this world has to offer, you round a peak and suddenly think you're doing the whole thing over again, but this time on d...”

“A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

“I've always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don't have a brain.”

“If your workplace was somehow transplanted into the jungle and everyone was forced to survive at a very primitive level, it's safe to say that eventually your boss would rape you.”

“Even if all life on our planet is destroyed, there must be other life somewhere which we know nothing of. It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us,...”

“Business or profession?''I guess you'd call me a writer.'No profession,' said the police car, as if talking to itself. The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest.”

“Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelists business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will ...”