Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy quotes

Don’t panic.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is

I’d far rather be happy than right any day.

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

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

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.

I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.

It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.

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

There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.

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

Time is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in.

Reality is frequently inaccurate.

You’d better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.

There is no point in using the word ‘impossible’ to describe something that has happened.

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.

Ford… you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.

Eddie, what do you think of the ship’s computer? I think it is probably the best computer in the whole world.

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

The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote that the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied For example, by writing an article on how to save the universe from certain doom.

Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.

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

There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler’s mind.

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in ‘It’s a nice day’, or ‘You’re very tall’, or ‘Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright?’

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.

I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks.

Arthur shook his head and sat down. He looked up. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.’ ‘Why, what did she tell you?’ ‘I don’t know. I didn’t listen.’

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all his customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-hand Jumble, led them into it in the first place.

The planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.

If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Ford! There’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.

He was eccentric, which means he wasn’t like anyone else, which is what made him special.

Making people listen to poetry is worse than making people listen to poetry.

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

Mostly harmless.

If I think you’re boring you’ll be in danger.

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one. But still… they come.

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?