Life... is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.

The first ten million years were the worst," said Marvin, "and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.

The history of every major galactic civilisation tends to pass through three distinct and recognisable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterised by the question How can we eat?, the second by the question Why do we eat?, and the third but the question Where shall we have lunch?

At some distance down the corridor it seemed suddenly as if somebody started to beat on a bass drum.He listened to it for a few seconds and realized that it was just his heart beating.He listened for a few seconds more and realized that it wasn’t his heart beating, it was somebody down the corridor beating on a bass drum.

God's Final Message to His Creation:'We apologize for the inconvenience.

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "future perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.

Arthur lay in startled stillness on the acceleration couch. He wasn't certain whether he had just got space-sickness or religion.

It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.