“Marvin trudged on down the corridor, still moaning. "...and then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side...""No?" said Arthur grimly as he walked along beside him. "Really?""Oh yes," said Marvin, "I mean I've asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens.""I can imagine.”

“What's up?" [asked Ford.]"I don't know," said Marvin, "I've never been there.”

“Honeyed oatie cakes, lemon oatie cakes, oatie cakes with dried grapes!" moaned Athena, she and her owl both rolling her eyes."I've still got sacks fullin my storage rooms," said Artemis. "I give them to my temple priestesses to hand out to people who pray really hard...or not.""I use them as fish food," said Poseidon."Kindling," said Hephaestus. "They burn great on the forge.""I've sent a million sacks down to Egypt," said Dionysus. "They ran out of bricks for the Pyramids.”

“In a very little time they got to the corner of the field by the side of the pine wood where Eeyore's house wasn't any longer.'There!' said Eeyore. 'Not a stick of it left! Of course, I've still got all this snow to do what I like with. One mustn't complain.”

“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.”

“Tessa was only half way down the corridor when they caught up to her -Will and Jem, walking on either side of her. "you didn't really think we weren't going to come along, did you?" Will asked, raising his hand and letting his witchlight fare up between his fingers, lighting the corridor to daylight brightness. Charlotte, hurrying along ahead of them, turned and frowned, but said nothing. "I know you can't leave anything well alone," Tessa replied, looking straight ahead. "But I though better of Jem." "Where Will goes, I go," Jem said good-naturedly. "And besides, I'm as curious as he is.”