NARRATOR: There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Phase 2, “Fit the 7th” (BBC radio) (1978-12-24)
    (Source)

The Narrator then adds:

There is yet a third theory which suggests that both of the first two theories were concocted by a wily editor of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in order to increase the level of universal uncertainty and paranoia and so boost the sales of the Guide. This last theory is of course the most convincing, because The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the only book in the whole of the known Universe to have the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on the cover.

This quotation was brought back to be the epigraph for the second Hitchhiker book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), each paragraph on a different page:

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.


 
Added on 23-Jul-09 | Last updated 13-Jun-24
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