Book detail: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This trilogy, consisting of five books, is a classic in the science fiction genre, known for its wit, clever storytelling, and imaginative universe. It explores themes of existentialism, the meaning of life, and the absurdity of human existence through the eyes of its quirky and endearing characters.
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“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.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Even light, which travels so fast it takes most races thousands of years to realize that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Time is the worst place, so to speak, to get lost in, as Arthur Dent could testify, having been lost in both time and space a good deal. At least being lost in space kept you busy.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Did I do anything wrong today," he said, "or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“and we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere … and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“I don’t know what I’m looking for.” “What not?” “Because … because … I think it might be because if I knew I wouldn’t be able to look for them.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“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.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die." "Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried. "What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round. "No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arm out wide. "I will go mad!" he annouced.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was." "No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music, and the distant sound of warring police tribes.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“He almost danced to the fridge, found the three least hairy things in it, put them on a plate and watched them intently for two minutes. Since they made no attempt to move within that time he called them breakfast and ate them. Between them they killed a virulent space disease he'd picked up without knowing it in the Flargathon Gas Swamps a few days earlier, which otherwise would have killed off half the population of the Western Hemisphere, blinded the other half, and driven everyone else psychotic and sterile, so the Earth was lucky there.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Nobody likes a whistler, particularly not the divinity that shapes our ends.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“What is the point? We assume that every time we do anything we know what the consequences will be, i.e., more or less what we intend them to be. This is not only not always correct. It is wildly, crazily, stupidly, cross-eyed-blithering-insectly wrong!”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed. The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths. Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“He has personality problems beyond the dreams of analysts.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“But what about the End of the Universe? We'll miss the big moment." I've seen it. It's rubbish," said Zaphod,"nothing but a gnab gib." A what?" Opposite of a big bang. Come on, let's get zappy.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Marvin started his ironical humming again. Zaphod hit him and he shut up.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Ghastly," continued Marvin, "it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door," he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure. " 'All the doors in his spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.' " As the door closed behind them it became apparent that it did indeed have a satisfied sighlike quality to it. "Hummmmmmmyummmmmmmah!" it said.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“I'm so great even I get tongue-tied talking to myself.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin. "And what happened?" pressed Ford. "It committed suicide," said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“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.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“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.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Ford Prefect suppressed a little giggle of evil satisfaction, realized that he had no reason to suppress it, and laughed out loud, a wicked laugh.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“My capacity for happiness," he added, "you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“I like the cover," he said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“They live in perpetual fear of the time they call "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Even the evil-looking bird perched on a rod in the bar had stopped screeching out the names and addresses of local contract killers, which was a service it provided for free.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“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 as usual , I suppose.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“I don't want to die now!" he yelled. "I've still got a headache! I don't want to go to heaven with a headache, I'd be all cross and wouldn't enjoy it!”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“...they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number.” “Er, five,” said the mattress. “Wrong,” said Marvin. “You see?”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“The longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth generation and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at his watch, but that was eleven years ago now, and there has been no follow up.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“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 again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five
“Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.”
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five