The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Writing notes for science fiction books feels weird, but I have gathered a small collection of quotes that I like from the book:

This 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.

Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't.

[They] were ill at 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.

There would be no point in asking Zaphod, he never appeared to have a reason for anything he did at all: he had turned unfathomably 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.

I can even work out your personality problems to ten decimal places if it will help.

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.

Life - loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.

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.

There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?

I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.

Since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation - every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.

There are times, however, when whatever your metabolism you have to take a deep breath.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Condituonally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up.

Here we are at the End of the Universe and you haven't even lived yet. Did you miss out.

Those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job.

You're very sure of your facts. I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is one - for granted.

There was a long silence, during which they thought they could feel the Universe age a little.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't do it in chronological order, though.