“Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized that she must be exploring her subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was really clear what the other nine tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.”

“That was it. That was really it. She knew that she had told herself that that was it only seconds earlier, but this was now the final real ulimate it.”

“She felt faintly embarrassed by the sheer profusion of things she had for putting in baths, but she was for some reason incapable of passing any chemist’s or herb shop without going in to be seduced by some glass-stoppered bottle of something blue or green or orange or oily that was supposed to restore the natural balance of some vague substance she didn’t even know she was supposed to have in her pores.”

“She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care.”

“I begged her, 'Please don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'""What did she say?""She hit me on the head with the rock again," Ford responded curtly."I think i can confirm that was my daughter.""Sweet kid.""You have to get to know her," said Arthur."She eases up, does she?""No, but you get a better sense of when to duck.”

“Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them.”

“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, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.”