“Why?' is always the most difficult question to answer. You know where you are when someone asks you 'What's the time?' or 'When was the battle of 1066?' or 'How do these seatbelts work that go tight when you slam the brakes on, Daddy?' The answers are easy and are, respectively, 'Seven-thirty in the evening,' 'Ten-fifteen in the morning,' and 'Don't ask stupid questions.”

“Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.”

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”

“Sometimes if you received an answer, the question might be taken away.”

“For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact 42- and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.”

“Why' is the only question that bothers people enough to have an entire letter of the alphabet named after it.The alphabet does not go 'A B C D What? When? How?' but it does go 'V W X Why? Z.”

“Ok," he said, "I don't like to disturb you at what I know must be a difficult and distressing time for you, but I need to know first of all if you actually realize that this is a difficult and distressing time for you.”