The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
"You know, it's at times like this when I'm stuck in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she say?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen."
He gestured Arthur toward a chair which looked as if it had been made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus. "It was made out of the rib cage of a stegosaurus," explained the old man (...)
He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
The way it functions is very interesting. When the Drink button is pressed it makes an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sends tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's brain to see what is likely to be well received.
However, no one knew quite why it does this because it then invariably delivers a cupful of liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
The Nutri-Matic was designed and manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation whose complaints department now covers all the major land masses of the first three planets in the Sirius Tau Star system.
"I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself into [the ship]'s external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length, and explained my view of the universe to it, " said Marvin.
"And what happened?" pressed Ford.
"It committed suicide," said Marvin.
"For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across--which happened to be the Earth -- where due to a terribble miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidently swallowed by a small dog"
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
"May I interest you in parts of my body? Something off the shoulder perhaps?"
(...)
"Very good, I'll just nip off and shoot myself.
"I go up," said the elevator, "or down."
"Good, " said Zaphod, "we're going up."
"Or down," the elevator reminded him.
"Yeah, okay, up please."
There was a moment of silence.
"Down's very nice," suggested the elevator hopefully.
"Oh yeah?"
"Super."
"Good," said Zaphod, "now will you take us up?"
"May I ask you," inquired the elevator in its sweetest, most reasonable voice, "if you've considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?"
Zaphod knocked one of his heads against the inside wall.
Marvin vs. a tank, Frogstar Scout robot class D:
"You? Stop me?" roared the tank, "Go on!"
"No, really I have," said Marvin simply.
"What are you armed with?" roared the tank in disbelief.
"Guess," said Marvin.
(...)
"How about an electron ram?"
This was new to Marvin.
"What's that?" he said.
"One of these," said the machine with enthusiasm.
(...)
"No," said Marvin, "not one of those."
"Good though, isn't it?"
"Very good," agreed Marvin.
"I know," said the Frogstar battle machine, after another moment's consideration, "you must have one of those new Xanthic Restructron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!"
"Nice, aren't they?" said Marvin.
"That's what you've got?" said the machine in considerable awe.
"No," said Marvin.
"Oh," said the machine, disappointed,
"Out," he said. People who can supply that amount of firepower don't need to supply verbs as well. Ford and Arthur went out, closely followed by the wrong end of the Kill-O-Zap gun
Life, The Universe, And Everyting
Arthur's brain somersaulted. His jaw did push-ups.
then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.
"I won't disturb you with the details because they would..."
"What?"
"Disturb you."
"I am single-handedly responsible for the evolved shape of the animal you came to know in later centuries as a giraffe."
"The Guide says that there is an art to flying," said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Ford was beginning to behave rather strangely, or rather not actually beginning to behave strangely but beginning to behave in a way that was strangely different from the other strange ways in which he more regularly behaved.
Nothing moved.
There was silence.
(...)
Nothing moved.
Again, silence.
Nothing moved.
Silence.
Nothing moved.
Very often on Sqornshellous Zeta, whole days would go on like this, and this was indeed going to be one of them.
Fourteen hours later the sun sank hopelessly beneath the opposite horizon with a sense of totally wasted effort. And a few hours later it reappeared (...)
This time, however, something was happening. A mattress had just met a robot.
"Hello, robot," said the mattress.