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"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?"

"All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place."

"The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied."

"- "It says in the brochure," said Arthur, pulling it out of his pocket and looking at it again, "that I can have a special prayer, individually tailored to me and my special needs." - "Oh, all right," said the old man. "Here's a prayer for you. Got a pencil"- "Yes," said Arthur. - "It goes like this. Let's see now: "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 about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen." That's it. It's what you pray silently inside yourself anyway, so you may as well have it out in the open." - "Hmmm," said Arthur. "Well, thank you"- "There's another prayer that goes with it that's very Important," continued the old man, "so you'd better jot this down, too, just in case. You can never be too sure. "Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen." And that's it. Most of the trouble people get into in life comes from missing out that last part."

"I’m afraid you cannot leave,' said Zarniwoop, 'you are entwined in the Improbability Field. You cannot escape.' He smiled the smile that Zaphod had wanted to hit and this time Zaphod hit it."

"Don't Panic"

"One moment I was sitting in your ship feeling very depressed, and the next moment I was standing here feeling utterly miserable. An Improbability Field I expect."

"Marvin: Look, look, no, just think. They left me - an ordinary, menial robot - to stop you - a gigantic, heavy-duty battle machine - whilst they ran off to save themselves... What do you think they would leave me with? Frogstar Robot: Well, er, something pretty damn devastating I would expect. Marvin: Expect? Oh yes, expect. I'll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with, shall I? Frogstar Robot: Yes all right. Marvin: Nothing. Frogstar Robot: What? Marvin: Nothing at all. Not an electronic sausage. Frogstar Robot: Well, doesn't that just take the biscuit!"

"Now logic is a wonderful thing but it has, as the process of evolution discovered, certain drawbacks. Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else which thinks at least as logically as it does."

"Conceited little mega-puppy."

"He was following the Earth through its days, drifting with the rhythms of its myriad pulses, seeping through the webs of its life, swelling with its tides, turning with its weight."

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."

"“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”"

"“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”"

"“The story so far:In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”"

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

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose."

"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."

"He hadn't realized that life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers for the questions you continually ask of it, had never consciously detected it or recognized its tones until it now said something it had never said to him before, which was "yes"."

"...just because you see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s there. And if you don’t see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s not there. It’s only what your senses bring to your attention."