The story goes that I first had the idea for The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck.

And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?

The difference between us and a computer is that, the computer is blindingly stupid, but it is capable of being stupid many, many million times a second.

Six pints of bitter, said Ford Prefect. And quickly please, the world's about to end.

Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.

The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome.

Fifteen years was a long time to be stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mind-boggingly dull as Earth.