Sadness Quotes in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

Marvin regarded it with cold loathing whilst his logic circuits chattered with disgust and tinkered with the concept of directing physical violence against it. Further circuits cut in saying, Why bother? What's the point? Nothing is worth getting involved in. (11.75)

The "it" in this quote that Marvin hates is the happy door, which makes sense for Marvin: what annoys depressive robots more than happy computers? But we pulled this quote mostly for the way Marvin's depression leads him on towards, well, nothing. This part also makes us laugh because his circuits talk in a very casual way: "Why bother?" is something a fed-up person would say, not the kind of thing we expect to hear from robots.

Quote #5

"Desolate hole if you ask me," said Ford. "I could have more fun in a cat litter." He felt a mounting irritation. Of all the planets in all the star systems of all the Galaxy—didn't he just have to turn up at a dump like this after fifteen years of being a castaway? Not even a hot dog stand in evidence. He stooped down and picked up a cold clot of earth, but there was nothing underneath it worth crossing thousands of light years to look at. (20.5)

First impressions are very important, which is why it's so sad that Magrathea comes off as a dump the first time people see it. (Of course, once you get to know Magrathea, you'll see how, underneath the surface, it's even more terrible.) Here Ford sounds a little bit like Marvin: there's nothing here worth doing, he says, which reminds us a lot of Marvin's depressive quips. (Also, note that "Of all the planets in all the star systems of all the Galaxy" sounds like a parody of Casablanca's famous quote: "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world…")

Quote #6

"But that sunset! I've never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams ... the two suns! It was like mountains of fire boiling into space."
"I've seen it," said Marvin. "It's rubbish." (21.17-8)

Here's a great quote if you need evidence that Marvin is more depressed than any other character. (Honestly, you probably don't need our help to find that evidence, since it's all over the book.) Arthur has lost his planet and everything he's known, but he can still find some beauty and wonder in the world. Marvin, by contrast, has one setting: extreme misery. Ironically, this makes him very funny.