It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.


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DOUGLAS ADAMS
The trouble with most forms of transport, he thought, is basically one of them not being worth all t...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Sunlight played along the River Cam. People in punts happily shouted at each other to fuck off. Thin...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The light was only just visible - except of course that there was no one to see, no witnesses, not t...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
He turned slowly like a fridge door opening.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Dirk was, for one of the few times in a life of exuberantly prolific loquacity, wordless.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of thin...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
He felt like an old sponge steeped in paraffin and left in the sun to dry.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way, like an aunt who disapproves of the last f...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The light works," he said, indicating the window, "the gravity works," he said, dropping a pencil on...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
She tried to worry that something terrible had happened to him, but didn't believe it for a moment. ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Gordon Way's astonishment at being suddenly shot dead was nothing compared to his astonishment at wh...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Yes it is,' said the Professor. 'Wait—' he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain i...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
In the great debate that has raged for centuries about what, if anything, happens to you after death...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
That was it. That was really it. She knew that she had told herself that that was it only seconds ea...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
If everyone knew exactly what I was going to say, then there would be no point in my saying it, woul...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"

"The what?"...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I co...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder... Electric Monk...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The more Susan waited, the more the doorbell didn't ring. Or the phone.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible then whatever remains, however...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The door was the way to... to... The Door was The Way. Good. Capital letters were always the best wa...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable its...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Cyberspace is - or can be - a good, friendly and egalitarian place to meet.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
A fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach, and drifted back to the s...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with AS...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is...42!
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Wandering around the web is like living in a world in which every doorway is actually one of those s...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Life? Don't talk to me about life!
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angr...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The mere thought hadn't even begun to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my mind.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Vogon poetry is of course, the third worst in the universe.
The second worst is that of the Az...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?
DOUGLAS ADAMS
In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lo...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a dou...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
O Deep Thought computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much......
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Answer to the Great Question Of.....Life, the Universe and Everything.....(is) Forty-two.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit o...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, though...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong i...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys ...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sen...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existenc...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Even traveling despondently is better than arriving here.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
My doctor says that I have a malformed public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre,' h...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Same as you, Arthur. I hitched a ride. After all, with a degree in maths and another in astrophysics...
DOUGLAS ADAMS
He actually caught himself saying things like "Yippee," as he pranced ridiculously round the house.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non...
DOUGLAS ADAMS