We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford. "..." "And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win." "I care about lots of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty. "Such as?" "Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords." "Would you die for them?" "Fjords?" blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. "No." "Well then." "Wouldn't see the point, to be honest.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.

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

And then, just when you think that you have experienced all the wonders that this world has to offer, you round a peak and suddenly think you're doing the whole thing over again, but this time on drugs.

David Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have been there longer than we were, and seen different bits, because most of what we saw in the couple of days we were there sorting out our travel arrangements was awful. It was just the tourist area, i.e. that part of Bali which has been made almost exactly the same as everywhere else in the world for the sake of people who have come all this way to see Bali.

Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they'd have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City.

So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly?' I asked. He looked at me as if I were stupid. 'You die, of course. That's what deadly means.