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Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

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All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of t...more

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Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.

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He was following the Earth through its days, drifting with the rhythms of its myriad pulses, seeping through the webs of its life, swelling with its t...more

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He hadn't realized that life speaks with a voice to you, a voice that brings you answers for the questions you continually ask of it, had never consci...more

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This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays

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The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupi...more

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The history of every major galactic civilisation tends to pass through three distinct and recognisable phases, those of Survival, Enquiry and Sophisti...more

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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 ...more

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He would insult the Universe. That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decide...more

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One of the extraordinary things about life is the sort of places it's prepared to put up with living.

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She thought that trying to live life according to any plan you actually work out is like trying to buy ingredients for a recipe from the supermarket. ...more

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They found a coin and helped him to the telescope. He complained and insulted them, but they helped him look at each individual letter in turn. The fi...more

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Life... is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. ...more

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In the center lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot.