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

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing. But, says Man, The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED. Oh dear, says God, I hadn't thought of that, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Oh, that was easy, says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing."

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

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

"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

"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."

"It was his subconscious which told him this---that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing."

"People who need to bully you are the easiest to push around."

"Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through."

"A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment."

"We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win."

"There are some people you like immediately, some whom you think you might learn to like in the fullness of time, and some that you simply want to push away from you with a sharp stick."

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."

"And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before--and thus was the Empire forged."

"Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!"

"For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while."

"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 thanks for all the fish."

"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?Ask a glass of water!"

"But the plans were on display…On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them. That’s the display department. With a flashlight. Ah, well, the lights had probably gone. So had the stairs. But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?Yes, said Arthur, yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard."

"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"