HIKING ROUND THE GALAXY

Haven’t been feeling at all creative in the brain lately, very little writing happening so reading lots instead. Have just polished off Douglas Adams’ The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, all four of them as I realised I’d only ever read the first one, interspersed with Hilary Mantel’s Fludd and Sally Vickers’ Miss Garnet’s Angel.

I do like a good turn of phrase, and habitually record the ones which really take my fancy, even coming across some little gems in the midst of all the Hitch Hiker craziness.

I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions.

All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was. That’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.

Science has achieved some wonderful things of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.

- The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Life is wasted on the living.

...those people who most want to rule…are those least suited to do it.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

There is a moment in every dawn when light floats, there is the possibility of magic. Creation holds its breath.

My capacity for happiness…could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first.

There is an art…a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

- Life, the Universe, and Everything

….the brain which interpreted the images… was not the same brain. There had been no surgery involved, just the continual wrenching of experience.

…it was a very long moment, so long one could hardly tell where all the time was coming from.

…the sandpipers…ran with an odd kind of movement as if they’d been constructed by somebody very clever in Switzerland.

- So long, and thanks for all the fish

I love immersing myself in the world which an author creates, whether it be a real location with a story unfolding alongside actual events, or fictional locations and events derived purely from the author’s imagination.

To follow Arthur’s intrepid and ludicrous adventures all over the galaxy from the comfort of the couch makes me realise how small a part of the Universe I revolve in. As we get older there’s a tendency to fashion our own world into a manageable size, somewhere where not too many surprises are going to come up and bite us on the backside. Unfortunately, when we least expect it, just when we thought it was safe and the future looked promising, something will inevitably come at us right out of left field to turn that little world upside down.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we need a bit of a shake up to get us out of our mediocrity and pry our fingers loose from the controls. A predictable life might be safe, but it also sounds small. We have big dreams when we’re young, we think we’re invincible and we’re ready to take on the world, but that zest for life and eager spontaneity gradually gets whittled away over time. Oh to preserve that sense of wonder at what is happening all around us and believe that life can be so much bigger than the restrictions we put on it. I reckon Douglas Adams has it right…..

…If life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe