“I think that the reader should enrich what he is reading. He should misunderstand the text; he should change it into something else.”

“The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.”

“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.”

“A man should begin with his own times. He should become acquainted first of all with the world in which he is living and participating. He should not be afraid of reading too much or too little. He should take his reading as he does his food or his exercise. The good reader will gravitate to the good books. He will discover from his contemporaries what is inspiring or fecundating, or merely enjoyable, in past literature. He should have the pleasure of making these discoveries on his own, in his own way. What has worth, charm, beauty, wisdom, cannot be lost or forgotten. But things can lose all value, all charm and appeal, if one is dragged to them by the scalp.”

“Goosnargh," said Ford Prefect, which was a special Betelgeusian word he used when he knew he should say something but didn't know what it should be.”

“This should make him happy. This should change him. But it doesn't. It can't. He's been changed already. And I don't know what to write anymore, because I'm afraid of what it will be. Because I can't think, and she asks me to write, but I won't know what to write. I can't think. I can't think. Isobel. Isobel. Isobel.”