I imagine that the intelligent people are the ones so intelligent that they don’t even need or want to look ‘intelligent’ anymore.

If you have no competition there’s no need to debate.

She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without...

Zaphod marched quickly down the passageway, nervous as hell, but trying to hide it by striding purposefully.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it. I drank more and continued my mantra. ‘Stop thinking’, swig, ’empty your head’, swig, ‘now, seriously empty your head’.

Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.

But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility...

A little thing, like children putting flowers in my hair, can fill up the widening cracks in my self-assurance like soothing lanolin.

Why yes, I can,’ said Midas Mulligan, when he was asked whether he could name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. ‘The man who uses another’s pity for...

The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance...

A man’s confidence only pays when everything else just stays away in his life.

We reach for the same brand not because we trust its quality but because we want to reassure ourselves that we made a smart choice the last time we bought it.

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

Commandment #1: Believe in yourself. Commandment #2: Get over yourself.

A relationship doesn’t define you. You define you.

One of my rules is never to look sideways at what other people are doing but instead, do what I feel is right.

Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.

Sometimes you just know… And then it doesn’t even seem scary. Just certain and joyful. Like a deep stream, flowing steady and strong, jumping and splashing and churning as it passes around and over the...

Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it’s not a place on the map at all, but just a story...

For it is in your power to retire into yourself whenever you choose.

The only way you will ever be free is when you decide you have had enough of living up to the standards other people force upon you through shame. Never wear their chains of judgment...

In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.

…I don’t want security – to be self-assured – I want to risk my heart in making your portrait and be paid the wages of your devotion…

If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t...

Of course, in our train of thought, we would all like to think we’re on the right track, or at least the same railroad company as the right track.

Style comes from knowing who you are and who you want to be in the world; it does not come from wanting to be somebody else, or wanting to be thinner, shorter, taller, prettier.