"To attract the attention of a Perfectly Normal Beast," he said, as he walked forward towards them, "you need a pikka bird."

"Wh..." said Slartibartfast. "Wh..." "Hhhh... ?" said Arthur. "Dr..." said Ford Prefect. "OK," said Trillian.

"Funny," he intoned funerally, "how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does."

Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.

"I am Mr. Desiato's bodyguard," it went, "and I am responsible for his body, and I am not responsible for yours, so take it away before it gets damaged."

Suddenly he realized what the answer to the problem was, and it was this, that something very weird was happening; and if something very weird was happening, he thought, he wanted it to be happening to him.

Another achievement of the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax is that they were the first race who ever managed to shock a computer.

On the way back they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life and the obliteration of all other life forms.

"Advice," she said. "Advice, eh?" "Er, yes," said Arthur. "Yes, that is — " He frowned again at the brochure, as if to be certain that he hadn't misread it and stupidly turned up on the wrong planet or something.

"I've just come straight from the very very other end of time, where I've been hosting a show at the Big Bang Burger Bar — where I can tell you we had a very exciting evening ladies and gentlemen — and I will be with you right through this historic occasion, the End of History itself!"