The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Quotes

Find quotes from this novel, with commentary from Shmoop.  Pick a theme below to begin.

Absurdity Quotes

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever. (Introduction.7)

Sadness Quotes

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small...

Foolishness and Folly Quotes

This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these wer...

Awe and Amazement Quotes

By a curious coincidence, "None at all" is exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small...

Defeat Quotes

As soon as Mr. Prosser realized that he was substantially the loser after all, it was as if a weight lifted itself off his shoulders: this was more like the world as he knew it. He sighed. (1.143)

Art and Culture Quotes

Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one—more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and mor...

Science Quotes

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million mil...

Language and Communication Quotes

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex...

Exploration Quotes

…. (a Hooloovoo is a super-intelligent shade of the color blue). (4.22)

Politics Quotes

"But the plans were on display..." "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them." "That's the display department.""With a flashlight.""Ah, well the lights had probably gone."...