I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

So, the world is fine. We don’t have to save the world—the world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about, is whether or not the world we live...

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be...

Rather than arriving five hours late and flustered, it would be better all around if he were to arrive five hours and a few extra minutes late, but triumphantly in command.

If you describe yourself as “Atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘Agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god –...

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‘I could have thought of that’ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they...

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

One always overcompensates for disabilities. I’m thinking of having my entire body surgically removed.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is (wioll...

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

What’s up?” [asked Ford.]I don’t know,” said Marvin, “I’ve never been there.

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

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can...

Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being...

The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.

They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost...

My doctor says that I have a malformed public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre,’ he muttered to himself, ‘and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.’

So, like I said, these are a bunch of really sweet guys, but you wouldn’t want to share a Galaxy with them, not if they’re just gonna keep at it, not if they’re not gonna...

Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy profession, and a large number of its practitioners spend many nights drowning their sorrows in Ouisghian Zodahs.

Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple.’Ah, well, I’m not sure I believe that.

And so the Universe ended.

He felt a spasm of excitement because he knew instinctively who it was, or at least knew who it was he wanted it to be, and once you know what it is you want to...

I certainly don’t like the idea of missionaries. In fact, the whole business fills me with fear and alarm. I don’t believe in God, or at least not in the one we’ve invented for ourselves...

Don’t Panic

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much…the wheel, New York, wars and so on…while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the...

His study was a total mess, like the results of an explosion in a public library.

He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.

He actually caught himself saying things like “Yippee,” as he pranced ridiculously round the house.

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...

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

Beauty doesn’t have to be about anything. What’s a vase about? What’s a sunset or a flower about? What, for that matter, is Mozart’s Twenty-third Piano Concerto about?

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Don’t you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn’t developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that...

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ’em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

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,...

Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since.

The trouble with most forms of transport, he thought, is basically one of them not being worth all the bother. On Earth — when there had been an Earth, before it was demolished to make...

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.

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...

Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like, guys, oh, but don’t eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out...

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...

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the ‘Star Spangled Banner’, but in fact the message was this: So long and...

You come to me for advice, but you can’t cope with anything you don’t recognize. Hmmm. So we’ll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh Well, business...

Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know...

American Atheists: What message would you like to send to your Atheist fans?Douglas Adams: Hello! How are you?

We’re not obsessed by anything, you see,” insisted Ford.”…””And that’s the deciding factor. We can’t win against obsession. They care, we don’t. They win.””I care about lots of things,” said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly...

Trillian did a little research in the ship’s copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness. “Go to it,” it said, “and good luck.

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.