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9fe654b
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God's Final Message to His Creation: 'We apologize for the inconvenience.
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h2g2
hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy
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Douglas Adams |
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e73378a
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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.
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religion
paradox
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Douglas Adams |
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28e3a5d
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It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.
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travel
humor
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Douglas Adams |
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144cd4a
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If I ever meet myself,' said Zaphod, 'I'll hit myself so hard I won't know what's hit me.
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zaphod-beeblebrox
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Douglas Adams |
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9b188b0
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We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
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humour
doubt
life
uncertainty
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Douglas Adams |
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337b32d
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All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
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life
opinions
logic
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Douglas Adams |
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8f6be58
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There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened.
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reality
past
denial
impossible
logic
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Douglas Adams |
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f03a744
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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
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earth
humour
unfashionable
watches
primitive
cosmology
galaxy
digital
perspective
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Douglas Adams |
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4e53844
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We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win.
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Douglas Adams |
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78bae98
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There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again.
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heartbreak
love
narrative
moment
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Douglas Adams |
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3fdc88d
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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." ..
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humour
demolition
department
bypass
bureaucracy
house
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Douglas Adams |
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e29c4e7
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A cup of tea would restore my normality.
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Douglas Adams |
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9594a28
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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?"
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Douglas Adams |
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906aca9
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My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.
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science-fiction
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Douglas Adams |
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37e7631
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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."
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Douglas Adams |
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e611ffd
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Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for they've worked out."
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ford-prefect
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Douglas Adams |
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4d631e4
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To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
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political
politics
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Douglas Adams |
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48cecb5
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Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
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Douglas Adams |
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b12b72c
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Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it? Ford: We're safe. Arthur: Oh good. Ford: We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet. Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word that I wasn't previously aware of.
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safety-in-numbers
semantics
safe
wordplay
word
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Douglas Adams |
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9aa98d8
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Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple." "Ah, well, I'm not sure I believe that."
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Douglas Adams |
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9be0504
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This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in -- an interesting hole I find myself in -- fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to..
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puddle
intelligent-design
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Douglas Adams |
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53f0d5d
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What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water!"
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humour
jokes
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Douglas Adams |
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702329f
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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. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its th..
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sperm-whale
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Douglas Adams |
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105b2af
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Life is wasted on the living.
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inspirational
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Douglas Adams |
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e2541e6
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Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.
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Douglas Adams |
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db54ff2
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Life," said Marvin dolefully, "loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.
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inspirational
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Douglas Adams |
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64a6282
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It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "..
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humor
h2g2
ford-prefect
hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy
democracy
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Douglas Adams |
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f9d88a7
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In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
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Douglas Adams |
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a60ed37
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It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training.
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Douglas Adams |
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0be7305
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Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was. "Is there any tea on this spaceship?" he asked."
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humor
tea
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Douglas Adams |
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a88b7a6
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The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks.
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Douglas Adams |
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acb772d
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I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.
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Douglas Adams |
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21b40f5
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My universe is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.
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Douglas Adams |
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0c7507c
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A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment.
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Douglas Adams |
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6c48bf4
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The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the effect of which is like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.
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drinking
humor
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Douglas Adams |
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254eaee
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and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks.
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lemons
ford
insanity
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Douglas Adams |
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6754385
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The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?
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hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy
lunch
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Douglas Adams |
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9416bde
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The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.
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Douglas Adams |
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4e3ded7
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And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anyth..
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fenchurch
nailed
tree
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Douglas Adams |
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5113ffd
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Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through.
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psychology
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Douglas Adams |
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3ba770b
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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:
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science-fiction
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Douglas Adams |
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595ab5a
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Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button? Ford Prefect: I wouldn't- Arthur Dent: Oh. Ford Prefect: What happened? Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying 'Please do not press this button again.
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Douglas Adams |
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9c876fd
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One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reno..
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stupidity
intelligence
trillian
zaphod-beeblebrox
hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy
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Douglas Adams |
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f6ad880
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My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Bronte, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up leaning against a mantle piece, in order to prove it could be done. This is not quite true, in fact. My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees. However, this is not relevant to what is currently o..
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writing
writers
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Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt) |