The story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply. It begins with a house.

The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel. — The Guide

[Ford] Hi, Arthur, what are you doing? [Arthur] I'm trying to teach them Scrabble. It's uphill work. The only word they know is "Ugh," and they can't spell it.

[Captain] What about this wheel? They say it's a fascinating project. [Marketing Girl] We're having a little difficulty there. [Ford] Difficulty? Its the single simplest machine in the entire Universe! [Marketing Girl] All right, Mr. Wiseguy! You're so clever, you tell us what colour it should be!

[Zaphod] Hey, Marvin, how would you like to... [Marvin] ...lay down my life selflessly? Make the ultimate sacrifice? Consign my brain, which is the size of a planet, to death in a blazing sun, so that you can all pursue your futile little lives? [Zaphod] Yeah, Nothing personal. [Marvin] All right.

The history of every major Galactic civilization passes through three distinct and recognizable phases SURVIVAL is characterized by the question: How do we eat? INQUIRY by the question: What do we eat? SOPHISTICATION by the question: Where shall we have lunch?

Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for! The skies begin to tremble! Nature collapses into the screaming void! In 15 seconds' time, the Universe itself will be at an end! See where the light of infinity bursts in upon us! — Max Quordlepleen

[Zaphod] Hey, Marvin! We've got a job for you. [Marvin] I won't enjoy it. [Zaphod] Yes, you will. There's a whole new life stretching out in front of you! [Marvin] Oh, not another one! [Zaphod] Shut up and listen! There'll be excitement and adventure and really wild things! [Marvin] Sounds awful.

Still my favorite Eagles song. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZdZ... @vicparic.bsky.social

The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million... they were the worst, too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that, I went into a bit of a decline. —Marvin the Paranoid Android

[Marvin] I can go and stick my head in a bucket of water if you like. I mean, if that's what you really want. Would you like me to stick my head in a bucket of water? [Trillian] What's he saying, Zaphod? [Marvin] I've got one ready. [Zaphod] Nothing. He just phoned up to wash his head at us.

I hope you will all enjoy with me what I know you will find a tremendously exciting and terminal experience. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing penultimate about this one. This one, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial IT! —Max Quordlepleen

So now, ladies and gentlemen, take your places at the table. The candles are lit, the band is playing, and as the force-shielded dome above us slides apart, revealing a dark and sullen sky hung with the ancient light of livid, swollen stars; I can see we are in for a fabulous evening's apocalypse!

If you've done 6 impossible things this morning... Why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways... The Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

For Douglas Adams fans. @hitchhikersguide.bsky.social

[Waiter] If the lady and gentlemen would like to order drinks before dinner ... [Zaphod] Yeah, great! [Waiter] ... and the Universe will explode later for your pleasure. [Ford] Wow! What sort of drinks do you serve in this place? [Waiter] I think sir has misunderstood me. [Ford] I hope not!

[Ford] There's no way we could have survived that blast. [Trillian] None at all [Zaphod] I certainly didn't survive, I was a total goner! Wham! Bam! And that was it! [Ford] Yeah, We were blown to bits, arms and legs everywhere! [Zaphod] Yeah! Kerpow! Splat! [Waiter] Would you care to order drinks?

[Cop] It isn't easy being a cop! [Ford] What did he say? [Zaphod] It isn't easy being a cop. [Ford] That's his problem! Listen, we've enough problems of our own having you there shooting at us! If you'd like to avoid laying your personal problems on us, I think we'd all find it easier to cope!

Everyone is doing blood moon pics, I like my moon pics old school.

"Well, our hosts here have been gassing us, and zapping our minds and being weird and are now giving us this amazingly keen meal to make it up to us. Have some Vegan rhino cutlet!" —Zaphod Beeblebrox

The two battle fleets launched a joint attack on our galaxy. For thousands of years, the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and dived, toward the planet Earth where, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, the battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog.

[Arthur] All my life I've had this feeling in my bones that something sinister was happening in the Universe and no one would tell me what it was. [Slartibartfast] That's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that. [Arthur] Everyone? [Slartibartfast] Everyone.

The last-ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward 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.

[Slartibartfast] You must come with me. Great things are afoot. Come. Come now, or you will be late. [Arthur] Late? What for? [Slartibartfast] What is your name, human? [Arthur] Dent, Arthur Dent. [Slartibartfast] Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent. It's a sort of threat, you see.

[Arthur] Night's falling. Look, Robot, the stars are coming out. [Marvin] I know. Wretched, isn't it? [Arthur] But that sunset! I've never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams! The two suns ... It was like mountains of fire, boiling into space! [Marvin] I've seen it. It's rubbish.

[Zaphod] That is where we have to go, Into the interior of the planet!! Down into the very depths of time itself, where no man has trod these five million years! We are not going to be great or amazing. We are going to be amazingly amazing! [Marvin] Sounds awful! [Zaphod] Can it, Marvin!

"You think you've got problems? What are you supposed to do if you ARE a manically depressed robot? No, don't try to answer that. I'm 50,000 times as intelligent as you, and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level!" —Marvin the Paranoid Android

A large sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence some miles above the planet's surface. This innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it had to come to terms with suddenly not being a whale any more.

It's 2025. We have supercomputers in our pockets, AI writing code (poorly), wireless everything, and pandemic-ending vaccines —but we still have to march because politicians would rather fund ignorance than progress. Trust me, I understand absurdity but this is ridiculous. #StandUpForScience

[Zaphod] Right, Computer, I want full manual control of this ship now! [Computer] You got it. [Trillian] But can you fly her? [Zaphod] No. Can you? [Trillian] No. [Zaphod] Ford? [Ford] No. [Zaphod] Fine. We'll do it together. [Arthur] I can't either. [Zaphod] I'd guessed.

[Zaphod] Terrific! They're trying to kill us! You know what that means? [Arthur] Yes, we're going to die. [Zaphod] Yeah. no. maybe. It means there's something down there they don't want us to have and if they don't want us to have it that badly, I want to have it even worse.

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and, on the whole, tax-free. In those days, spirits were brave, stakes were high, men were real men... Women were real women ...

"I don't believe it! This is just too amazing! Oh, this is going to be great! I'm going to be so amazingly cool it would fluster a Vegan snow lizard! What real cool! Several million points out of ten for style! Right -- now which is the most nonchalant chair to be discovered in?" —Zaphod Beeblebrox

[Trillian] I just thought of something. [Zaphod] Yeah?! worth interrupting a news bulletin about me for? [Trillian] Look, can we leave your ego out of this? This is important. [Zaphod] If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot now!

Roses are red, Vogons are vile, Don't trust the dolphins— They've left with a smile.

[Arthur Dent] Oh! I wonder what will happen if I press this button? [Ford Prefect] Don't! [BEEP!] [Arthur Dent] Oh! [Ford Prefect] What happened? [Arthur Dent] A sign lit up saying, "Please do not press this button again."

[Ford Prefect] I think this ship is brand-new, Arthur. [Arthur Dent] Why, have you got some exotic device for measuring the age of metal? [Ford Prefect] No. I just found this sales brochure on the floor.

LPT: You can cram a TON more text in the "ALT Text" of an image than you can in a normal post. You never know what you may find there.

Trillian: Look, don't worry about the aliens. They are just a couple of guys, I expect. I'll send the robot down to check them out. Hey, Marvin? Marvin: I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.

Arthur: It looks like the seafront at Southend. Ford: I'm relieved to hear you say that! Arthur: Why? Ford: I thought I must be going mad! Arthur: Perhaps you only thought I said it. Ford: Well, did you or didn't you? Arthur: I think so. Ford: Perhaps we're both going mad. Arthur: Nice day for it

This account shares amusing quotes from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, and (rarely) myself. Please know that this account is run by someone actively fighting to uphold progressive political values in other parts of my life. Trumpanzees and Muskrats need not apply.

[Ford Prefect] See, I told you I'd think of something. [Arthur Dent] Oh, sure! [Ford Prefect] Bright idea of mine to find a passing spaceship and get rescued by it. [Arthur Dent] Oh, come on! The chances against it were astronomical. [Ford Prefect] Don't knock it! It worked!

If you are thrown from a spaceship, you will die of asphyxiation in thirty seconds. Because space is so mind-bogglingly big, the chances of being picked up by another spacecraft within those seconds are two to the power of two hundred and sixty thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine to one against.

"I woke up this morning, thought I'd have a nice, relaxed day, do a bit of reading, brush the dog. It's just now after 4:00 in the afternoon, and I'm already being thrown out of an alien spaceship five light years from the smoking remains of the Earth." — Arthur Dent

"I present you with a simple choice. Think very carefully, for your very lives lie in your hands. Now choose! Either die in the vacuum of space or tell me how good you thought my poem was." — Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz

The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool. They lay, they rotted. They turned around occasionally. Bits of flesh dropped off them from time to time. And sank into the pool’s mire. They also smelt a great deal. — Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, of Greenbridge, Essex, England

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."

"Most of the people living on earth are unhappy pretty much of the time. Many solutions have been suggested, but most of them are largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper. This is odd because, on the whole, it's not the small green pieces of paper that are unhappy."

[Arthur Dent] What the hell's that? [Ford Prefect] If we're lucky, it's a Vogon guard come to throw us into space. [Arthur Dent] And if we're unlucky? [Ford Prefect] The Vogon captain might want to read us some of his poetry first.

"Vell, Zaphod's just zis guy, you know" — Gag Halfront