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a28591f
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The only moral it is possible to draw from this story is that one should never throw the Q letter into a privet bush, but unfortunately there are times when it is unavoidable.
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humor
philosophy
hitchihikers
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Douglas Adams |
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feebbfe
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So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly?' I asked. He looked at me as if I were stupid. 'You die, of course. That's what deadly means.
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b26616f
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Was there a reason behind it? There would be no point in asking Zaphod, he never appeared to have a reason for anything he did at all: he had turned unfathomability into an art form. He attacked everything in life with a mixture of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
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35368d1
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Ok," he said, "I don't like to disturb you at what I know must be a difficult and distressing time for you, but I need to know first of all if you actually realize that this is a difficult and distressing time for you."
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Douglas Adams |
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db6fd54
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Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police---who already think you're guilty---will find it for you.
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963c8e0
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What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" "Six by nine. Forty two." "That's it. That's all there is." "I always thought something was fundamentally wrong with the universe"
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2fe9ff3
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The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way, like an aunt who disapproves of the last fifteen years of your life and will therefore furnish you with a basic sherry, but refuses to catch your eye.
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Douglas Adams |
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cea9ff3
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Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
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006e1f2
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The deep roar of the ocean. The break of waves on farther shores that thought can find. The silent thunders of the deep. And from among it, voices calling, and yet not voices, humming trillings, wordlings, and half-articulated songs of thought. Greetings, waves of greetings, sliding back down into the inarticulate, words breaking together. A crash of sorrow on the shores of Earth. Waves of joy on--where? A world indescribably found, indescr..
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dolphins
ocean
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Douglas Adams |
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5d40ae4
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Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal."
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Douglas Adams |
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12f09af
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A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a m..
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35b73ba
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Gordon Way's astonishment at being suddenly shot dead was nothing compared to his astonishment at what happened next.
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Douglas Adams |
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c690f94
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Fifteen years was a long time to be stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mind-boggingly dull as Earth.
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Douglas Adams |
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b8e2221
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Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially.
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humor
vegetarianism
vegetarian
ethics
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Douglas Adams |
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73748aa
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A beach house isn't just real estate. It's a state of mind.
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Douglas Adams |
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3563449
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something almost, but not quite entirely unlike tea
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Douglas Adams |
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6a6040c
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She tried to worry that something terrible had happened to him, but didn't believe it for a moment. Nothing terrible ever happened to him, though she was beginning to think that it was time it damn well did. If nothing terrible happened to him soon maybe she'd do it herself. Now there was an idea.
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worrying
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Douglas Adams |
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c8ec2cb
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Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich. [...] "But we have also," continued the management consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying on ship's peanut." [...] "So in order to obviate this problem," he ..
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fiscal-policy
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Douglas Adams |
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6f78486
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If there's any real truth, it's that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.
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Douglas Adams |
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1313bb8
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He had got himself a life. Now he had to find a purpose in it.
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b8ddf54
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They've got as much sex appeal as a road accident.
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550e641
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I think we have different value systems." --Arthur "Well mine's better." --Ford"
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science
scifi
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Douglas Adams |
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877b53d
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Imagine" he said, "never even thinking, 'We are alone,' simply because it has never occurred to you to think that there's any other way to be."
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5b60beb
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I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style
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5e13b02
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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 cl..
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b919146
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The kakapo] is an extremely fat bird. A good-sized adult will weigh about six or seven pounds, and its wings are just about good for waggling a bit if it thinks it's about to trip over something -- but flying is out of the question. Sadly, however, it seems that not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparently a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out ..
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cb535e8
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Dirk turned on the car wipers, which grumbled because they didn't have quite enough rain to wipe away, so he turned them off again. Rain quickly speckled the windscreen. He turned on the wipers again, but they still refused to feel that the exercise was worthwhile, and scraped and squeaked in protest.
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ff89da5
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A computer chatted to itself in alarm as it noticed an airlock open and close itself for no apparent reason. This was because Reason was in fact out to lunch.
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e130295
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Ford looked at him severely. And no sneaky knocking down Mr Dent's house whilst he's away, alright?" he said. The mere thought," growled Mr Prosser, "hadn't even begun to speculate," he continued, settling himself back, "about the merest possibility of crossing my mind."
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a66790b
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Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless.
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3a02f5f
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Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single fact took the scientific world by storm.
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Douglas Adams |
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a0b46a3
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The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion.
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humour
zaphod-beeblebrox
waiter
confusion
effect
service
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c646de4
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We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford. "..." "And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win." "I care about lots of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty. "Such as?" "Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords." "Would you die for them?" "Fjords?" blinked Slartibartfast in surpri..
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irony
sci-fi
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43469cc
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The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them
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writing
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d66cde0
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Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe there is a reason.
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Douglas Adams |
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96a8835
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How do you know you're having fun if there's no one watching you have it?
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Douglas Adams |
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e703e7f
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He felt a spasm of excitement because he knew instinctively who it was, or at least knew who it was he wanted it to be, and once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.
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075ab9c
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Lemon??!!
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5c7d62e
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Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.
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hitchhiker-s-guide
panic
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Douglas Adams |
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2e900b7
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The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive. Its crew of four were ill as ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics- as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules
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relationships
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f5a38c4
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High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse.
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008f911
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What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' " "I reject that entirely," said Dirk sharply. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbably lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is that it is hopelessly i..
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f73e8da
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No. No games. He wanted her and didn't care who knew it. He definitely and absolutely wanted her, longed for her, wanted to do more things than there were names for with her.
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bff8a78
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If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.
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