ABOYNE (vb.) To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder... Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

The fact is, I don't know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn't collapse when you beat your head against it.

For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact Forty-two - and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.

Hey, this is terrific!" he said. "Someone down there is trying to kill us!" "Terrific," said Arthur. "But don't you see what this means?" "Yes. We are going to die." "Yes, but apart from that." "Apart from that?!" "It means we must be on to something!" "How soon can we get off it?

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.

Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there.