“Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone.”
“I don't want to die now!" he yelled. "I've still got a headache! I don't want to go to heaven with a headache, I'd be all cross and wouldn't enjoy it!”
“We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.”
“Mr Cjelli, nice to see you back, sir. Sorry you had a spot of bother, hope that's all behind you now.""Indeed, Bill, it is. You find me thriving. And Mrs Roberts? How is she? Foot still troubling her?""Not since she had it off, thanks for asking, sir. Between you and me, sir, I would've been just as happy to have had her amputated and kept the foot. I had a little spot reserved on the mantelpiece, but there we are, we have to take things as we find them."(...)"...thank you, and my best to what remains of Mrs Roberts.”
“Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit”
“I don't know what this great thing I'm meant to be doing is, and it looks to me as if I was supposed not to know. And I resent that, right? "The old me knew. The old me cared. Fine, so far so good. Except that the old me cared so much that he actually got inside his own brain--my own brain--and locked off the bits that knew and cared, because if I knew and cared I wouldn't be able to do it. [...] "But this former self of mine killed himself off, didn't he, by changing my brain? Okay, that was his choice. This new me has its own choices to make, and by a strange coincidence those choices involve not knowing and not caring about this big number, whatever it is. That's what he wanted, that's what he got. "Except this old self of mine tired to leave himself in control, leaving orders for me in the bit of my brain he locked off. Well, I don't want to know, and I don't want to hear them. That's my choice. I'm not going to be anybody's puppet, particularly not my own. [...] "The old me is dead! [...] Killed himself! The dead shouldn't hang about trying t0 interfere with the living.”
“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.”