“You know," said Arthur, "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.””
“This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.””
“So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die.""Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried."What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round."No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.””
“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.””
“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.””
“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.””
“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, "I thought you said it was a democracy.""I did," said Ford. "It is.""So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?""It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.""You mean they actually vote for the lizards?""Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course.""But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?""Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?""What?""I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?""I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."Ford shrugged again."Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it.""But that's terrible," said Arthur."Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.””
“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.””
“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.””
“I like the cover," he said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.””
“After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur's mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with.He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.””
“You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.""Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.””
“Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.””
“This man is the bee's knees, Arthur, he is the wasp's nipples. He is, I would go so far as to say, the entire set of erogenous zones of every major flying insect of the Western world.””
“Arthur shook his head and sat down. He looked up.“I thought you must be dead …” he said simply.“So did I for a while,” said Ford, “and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.””
“How do you feel?" he asked him."Like a military academy," said Arthur. "Bits of me keep on passing out.””
“The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like.It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity”
“His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn't got anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw, his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered around in an aimless fashion. For a second or so the brain tried to catch the left hand without letting go of the mouth and simultaneously tried to think about what was buried in the ice, which is probably why the legs went and Arthur dropped restfully to the ground.””
“The waiter approached.'Would you like to see the menu?' he said. 'Or would you like to meet the Dish of the Day?''Huh?' said Ford. 'Huh?' said Arthur.'Huh?' said Trillian.'That’s cool,' said Zaphod. 'We'll meet the meat.””