Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point
A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to
point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point
directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great
about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get
there and what's so great about point B that so many people from
point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people
would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to
be.
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-eight
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 ...
Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry
creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from
Alpha Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives
that no man had split before. Thus was the Empire forged.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely,
mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way
down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
The word "spine" is, of course, an anagram of "penis." This
is true in almost fifty percent of the languages in the Galaxy, and
many people have attempted to explain why. Usually, these
explanations get bogged down in silly puns about "standing erect."
There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the
universe is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more
bazaarly inexplicable."
There is another theory that states: "This has already
happened..."
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.
This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this:
most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the
time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of
these were largely concerned with the movements of small green
pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the
small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
"You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon
airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation
in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother
told me when I was young!"
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen!"
[From Last Chance to See] 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.