“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 chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” 

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.” 

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.” 

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?” 

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” 

“Don't Panic.” 

“The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” 

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” 

“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. 

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.” 

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” 

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” 

“Can't stand all these poisonous creatures, all these snakes and insects and fish and things. Wretched things, biting everybody. And then people expect me to tell them what to do about it. I'll tell them what to do. Don't get bitten in the first place. (quoting Dr. Struan Sutherland)” 

“There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late” 

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.” 

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.” 

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style

“I'm not black on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a woman on Thursday, Friday and Saturday” 

“American travel seems to need an advocate.” 

I've got a funny old face. Someone described it once, and I think they were being kind, as character. But I know what they mean! I've never been that conventional. I suppose maybe it means that my face can look different in different lights, so I just try and sort of keep it simple when I'm going out, to still look like me.

“Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited.”

“Laughter is an orgasm of the mind.”