Mostly Harmless Douglas Adams Quotes

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training.

Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.

Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.

You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself." "Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.

She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care.

Mostly harmless

He had got himself a life. Now he had to find a purpose in it.

A beach house isn't just real estate. It's a state of mind.

You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.

What was the self-sacrifice?" I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." Why was that self-sacrifice?" Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. I think we have different value systems." Well mine's better.

I think we have different value systems." —Arthur "Well mine's better." —Ford

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

In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not important. It's just the means of revealing the indentations. So you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do with people thinking about people.

I begged her, 'Please don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'" "What did she say?" "She hit me on the head with the rock again," Ford responded curtly. "I think i can confirm that was my daughter." "Sweet kid." "You have to get to know her," said Arthur. "She eases up, does she?" "No, but you get a better sense of when to duck.

We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own.

One of the extraordinary things about life is the sort of places it's prepared to put up with living.

The fact that all of this was happening in virtual space made no difference. Being virtually killed by virtual laser in virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are.

He had a nasty feeling that that might be an idiotic thing to do, but he did it anyway, and sure enough it had turned out to be an idiotic thing to do. You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Earth: mostly harmless

Every single decision we make, every breath we draw, opens some doors and closes many others. Most of them we don't notice. Some we do.

NO ADMITTANCE. NOT EVEN TO AUTHORISED PERSONNEL. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME HERE. GO AWAY.

At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing.

You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.

Fall, though, is the worst. Few things are worse than fall in New York. Some of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats would disagree, but most of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats are highly disagreeable anyways, so their opinion can and should be discounted.

You know,' he said, sitting back, reflectively, 'it's at times like this that you kind of wonder if it's worth worrying about the fabric of space-time and the causal integrity of the multidimensional probability matrix and the potential collapse of all waveforms in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash and all that sort of stuff that's been bugging me.

She thought that trying to live life according to any plan you actually work out is like trying to buy ingredients for a recipe from the supermarket. You get one of those trolleys which simply will not go in the direction you push it and end up just having to buy completely different stuff. What do you do with it? What do you do with the recipe? She didn't know.

Laser light flickered all over him as if he was a packet of biscuits at a super-market check-out.

Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy.

He had been told that when looking for a good oracle, it was best to find the oracle that other oracles went to.

We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own.

There was only one ambition that anyone on the planet ever had, and that was to leave.

Fuck ’em,” said Ford, slumping on the bed. “You can’t care about every damn thing.

The villagers were absolutely hypnotized by all these wonderful magic images flashing over her wrist. They had only ever seen one spaceship crash, and it had been so frightening, violent and shocking and had caused so much horrible devastation, fire and death that, stupidly, they had never realized it was entertainment.

These muddles were as nothing to the ones which historians had to try and unravel once time trouble was discovered and battles started pre-erupting hundred of years before the issues even arose.

You come to me for advice, but you can’t cope with anything you don’t recognize. Hmmm. So we’ll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh? Well, business as usual, I suppose.

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”)

Ford had his own code of ethics. It wasn’t much of one, but it was his and he stuck by it, more or less. One rule he made was never to buy his own drinks. He

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.

Well, you look well on it.' `I feel well. You look well.' `I'm well. I'm very well.' `Well, that's good.' `Yes.' `Good.' `Good.' `Nice of you to drop in.' `Thanks.' `Well,' said Arthur, casting around himself. Astounding how hard it was to think of anything to say to someone after all this time.

Why, how much did you tip him?' Ford named a figure again. 'I don't know how much it is,' said Arthur. 'What's it worth in pounds sterling? What could it buy you?' 'It would probably buy you, roughly... er...' Ford screwed his eyes up as he did some calculations in his head. 'Switzerland,' he said at last.

La principale differenza tra una cosa che potrebbe rompersi e una cosa che non può in alcun modo rompersi è che quando una cosa che non può in alcun modo rompersi si rompe, di solito risulta impossibile da riparare.

So that you understand that just because you see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s there. And if you don’t see something it doesn’t mean to say it’s not there, it’s only what your senses bring to your attention.

The word was out that maybe, just maybe, a British accent would fit. The hair, the skin tone and the bridgework would have to be up to American network standards, but there had been a lot of British accents up there thanking their mothers for their Oscars, a lot of British accents singing on Broadway, and some unusually big audiences tuning in to British accents in wig on Masterpiece Theatre.

Arthur followed Ford’s finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn’t register, then his mind nearly blew up. “What? Harmless? Is that all it’s got to say? Harmless! One word!” Ford shrugged. “Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book’s microprocessors,” he said, “and no one knew much about the Earth, of course.” “Well, for God’s sake, I hope you managed to rectify that a bit.” “Oh yes, well, I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it’s still an improvement.” “And what does it say now?” asked Arthur. “Mostly harmless,

If you are reading this on planet Earth then: A. Good luck to you. There is an awful lot of stuff you don’t know anything about, but you are not alone in this. It’s just that in your case the consequences of not knowing any of this stuff are particularly terrible, but then, hey, that’s just the way the cookie gets completely stomped on and obliterated. B. Don’t imagine you know what a computer terminal is. A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.

What I lost, I think, was a whole other life." "Everybody does that. Every moment of every day. Every single decision we make, every breath we draw, opens some doors and closes many others. Most of them we don't notice. Some we do. Sounds like you noticed one.

Tutto quel che, in qualsiasi forma, vedi, senti o provi è specifico di te. Tu crei un universo percependolo, sicché tutto quanto percepisci dell'universo è specifico di te

She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she could fool herself she could fool anybody.

Of course it isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or — what’s that strange thing you British play?” “Er, cricket? Self-loathing?” “Parliamentary democracy.

When it’s fall in New York, the air smells as if someone’s been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe, the best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a building.

I've been busy," said Ford, rather weakly. He staggered to his feet, brushing himself down. Then he thought, what the hell was he saying things weakly for? He had to get on top of this situation.

He headed to the outer Eastern rim of the Galaxy, where it was said, wisdom and truth were to be found, most particularly on planet Hawalius, which was a planet of oracles and seers and soothsayers and also take-out pizza parlors, because most mystics were completely incapable of cooking for themselves.

La prima cosa da capire a proposito degli universi paralleli... è che non sono paralleli. È importante rendersi conto che, a rigore, non sono neppure universi, ma è molto più facile cercare di capirlo un po' più tardi, dopo che ci si è resi conto che tutto quello che si è capito fino a quel momento non è vero.

There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambigiuous phyiscal universe.

Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole galaxy of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just two things: the world he was born on and the woman he loved.

Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.

This is terrific,” Arthur thought to himself, “Nelson’s Column has gone, McDonald’s has gone, all that’s left is me and the words Mostly harmless. Any second now all that will be left is Mostly harmless. And yesterday the planet seemed to be going so well.” A

Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though

Time, we know, is relative. You can travel light years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how far you travelled. This will come to you as a profound personal shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister.

You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know becasue you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.

There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe.

She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care. Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy. Tricia

Non puoi vedere quel che vedo io perché vedi quel che vedi. Non puoi sapere quel che so io perché sai quel che sai. Quel che io vedo e so non si può aggiungere a quel che vedi e sai tu, perché le due cose non sono dello stesso tipo. Né quel che che vedo e do io può sostituire quel che vedi e sai tu, perché questo significherebbe sostituire te stesso.

One of the joys of true happiness,’ trilled the robot, ‘is sharing. I brim, I froth, I overflow with . . .

One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't.

He was also firmly and utterly opposed to all and any forms of cruelty to any animals whatsoever except geese.

The trouble with trying to make the right accident happen is that it won't. That is not what "accident" means.

Life will always find a way og hanging on in somewhere.

He felt that the more time he spent away out in the Galaxy the more it seemed that the number of things he didn't know anything about actually increased.

We like to be on one side, and look at the other.

It's just that in your case the consequences of not knowing any of this stuff are particularly terrible, but then, hey, that's just the way the cookie gets completely stomped on and obliterated.

Because of the various sensory protuberances with which the robot was festooned, it couldn’t maneuver inside the towel, and it just twitched back and forth without being able to turn and face its captor.

If there was one thing life had taught her it was that there are times when you do not go back for your bag and times when you do. It had yet to teach her to distinguish between the two types of occasion.

He looked up at the sky, which was sullen, streaked and livid, and reflected that it was the sort of sky that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse wouldn’t feel like a bunch of complete idiots riding out of.

if there was one thing life had taught her it was that there are times when you do not go back for your bag and other times when you do. It had yet to teach her to distinguish between the two types of occasion.

She was, after all, a mathematician and astrophysicist by training and a television presenter by experience, and what science she had forgotten over the years she was more than capable of making up by bluffing.

Arthur checked himself into a small motel on the outskirts of town, and sat glumly on the bed, which was damp, and flipped through the little information brochure, which was also damp. It said that the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell.

Todo lo que ocurre, ocurre. Todo lo que al ocurrir, origina otra cosa, hace que ocurra otra cosa más. Todo lo que al ocurrir, vuelve a originarse, ocurre de nuevo. Aunque todo ello no ocurre necesariamente en orden cronológico.

I'll do the jokes,' snarled Ford. 'No,' said Harl. 'You will do the restaurant column.' ... 'You what?' said Ford. 'No. Me Harl. You Prefect. You do restaurant column. Me editor. Me sit here tell you you do restaurant column. You get?

Era tempo, diceva l'oroscopo, di agire con positiva fermezza, prendere ardue decisioni, vedere cosa occorresse fare e farlo. Era tutto assai difficile per lui, ma, sapeva il Capo, nessuno aveva mai detto che fare cose difficili non fosse difficile.

What? Harmless! Is that all it’s got to say? Harmless! One word!’ Ford shrugged. ‘Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book’s microprocessors,’ he said, ‘and no one knew much about the Earth, of course.’ ‘Well, for God’s sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit.’ ‘Oh yes, well I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it’s still an improvement.’ ‘And what does it say now?’ asked Arthur. ‘Mostly harmless,

What I lost, I think, was a whole other life.” “Everybody does that. Every moment of every day. Every single decision we make, every breath we draw, opens some doors and closes many others. Most of them we don’t notice. Some we do. Sounds like you noticed one.

Ford and Arthur talking: "This is very, very serious indeed. The Guide has been taken over. It's been bought out." Arthur leapt up. "Oh, very serious," he shouted. "Please fill me in straight away on some corporate publishing politics! I can't tell you how much it's been on my mind of late!" "You don't understand! There's a whole new Guide!" "Oh!" shouted Arthur again. "Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm incoherent with excitement! I can hardly wait for it to come out to find out which are the most exciting spaceports to get bored hanging about in in some globular cluster I've never heard of. Please, can we rush to a store that's got it right this very instant?" Ford narrowed his eyes. "This is what you call sarcasm, isn't it?" "Do you know," bellowed Arthur, "I think it is? I really think it might just be a crazy little thing called sarcasm seeping in at the edges of my manner of speech! Ford, I have had a fucking bad night! Will you please try and take that into account while you consider what fascinating bits of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia to assail me with next?" ... "Temporal reverse engineering." Arthur put his head in his hands and shook it gently from side to side. "Is there any humane way," he moaned, "in which I can prevent you from telling me what temporary reverse bloody-whatsiting is?" ... "I leaped out of a high-rise office window." This cheered Arthur up. "Oh!" he said. "Why don't you do it again?" "I did." "Hmmm," said Arthur, disappointed. "Obviously no good came of it." ... "What was the self-sacrifice?" "I jettisoned half of a much-loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes." "Why was that self-sacrifice?" "Because they were mine!" said Ford, crossly. "I think we have different value systems." "Well, mine's better.

You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself." "Hang on, can I write this down?" said Arthur, excitedly fumbling in his pocket for a pencil.

But nobody’s ever been to look or search or rescue. There’s been absolutely nothing.” “Well, there wouldn’t be. It’s a whole complicated insurance thing. They just bury the whole thing. Pretend it never happened. The insurance business is completely screwy now. You know they’ve reintroduced the death penalty for insurance company directors?” “Really?” said Arthur. “No, I didn’t. For what offense?” Trillian frowned. “What do you mean, offense?” “I see.

It said that the major activities pursued on NowWhat were those of catching, skinning, and eating of the NowWhattian boghogs, which were the only extant form of animal life on NowWhat, all other having died long ago of despair. The boghogs were tiny, vicious creatures, and the small margin by which they fell short of being completely inedible was the margin by which life on the planet subsisted. So what were the rewards, however small, that made life on NowWhat worth living? Well, there weren’t any. Not a one. Even making yourself some protective clothing out of boghog skins was an exercise in disappointment and futility, since the skins were unaccountably thin and leaky. This caused a lot of puzzled conjecture amongst the settlers. What was the boghog’s secret of keeping warm? If anyone had ever learnt the language the boghogs spoke to each other they would have realized that there was no trick. The boghogs were as cold and wet as anyone else on the planet.

We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, “Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble.

I went upstairs. Took me a while to find my bag, and then there was someone else in the bathroom. Came down and he was gone.” Tricia paused. “And …?” said Gail. “The garden door was open. I went outside. There were lights. Some kind of gleaming thing. I was just in time to see it rise up into the sky, shoot silently up through the clouds and disappear. That was it. End of story. End of one life, beginning of another. But hardly a moment of this life goes by that I don’t wonder about some other me. A me that didn’t go back for her bag. I feel like she’s out there somewhere and I’m walking in her shadow.

Едно от нещата, които Пътеводителят ни казва по въпроса за Паралелните вселени, е, че нямаш и минимален шанс да ги разбереш. Следователно можеш да казваш: „Какво!?“, „А!?“, да ти се кръстосат очите и дори да изпаднеш в нервна криза — без страх, че ще те вземат за глупак. Първото нещо, което трябва да се знае за Паралелните вселени, казва Пътеводителят, е, че не са паралелни. Също така е много важно да си дадем сметка, че те не са и вселени в точния смисъл на думата, но най-лесно е да се опитаме да разберем това малко по-късно, когато вече сме разбрали, че всичко, което сме разбрали досега, не е вярно. Причината да не са вселени е, че всяка Вселена не е нещо само по себе си, а само начин за разглеждане на онова, което е по-известно под техническото название ЦВММ или Цялостен всеобхватен миш-маш. Цялостният всеобхватен миш-маш също не съществува реално, а е сумата от различните начини, по които бихме могли да го разглеждаме, ако съществуваше. Причината, поради която Вселените не са паралелни, е същата, поради която и морето не е паралелно. Това не означава нищо. Можете да направите какъвто си искате разрез на Цялостния всеобхватен миш-маш и в общи линии ще получите нещо, което някой ще нарече свой дом.

One encouraging thing the Guide does have to say on the subject of parallel universes is that you don’t stand the remotest chance of understanding it. You can therefore say “What?” and “Eh?” and even go cross-eyed and start to blither if you like without any fear of making a fool of yourself. The first thing to realize about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel. It is also important to realize that they are not, strictly speaking, universes either, but it is easiest if you don’t try to realize that until a little later, after you’ve realized that everything you’ve realized up to that moment is not true. The reason they are not universes is that any given universe is not actually a thing as such, but is just a way of looking at what is technically known as the WSOGMM, or Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash doesn’t actually exist either, but is just the sum total of all the different ways there would be of looking at it if it did.

No? How about now? Am I going backwards?' For once the bird was perfectly still and steady. 'No,' said Random. 'Well I was in fact, I was moving backwards in time. Hmmm. Well I think we've sorted all that out now. If you'd like to know, I can tell you that in your universe you move freely in three dimensions that you call space. You move in a straight line in a fourth, which you call time, and stay rooted to one place in a fifth, which is the first fundamental of probability. After that it gets a bit complicated, and there's all sorts of stuff going on in dimensions 13 to 22 that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place. I can easily not say words like «damn» if it offends you.' 'Say what you damn well like.' 'I will.' 'What the hell are you?' demanded Random. 'I am The Guide. In your universe I am your Guide. In fact I inhabit what is technically known as the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash which means . . . well, let me show you.

Tricia loved New York because loving New York was a good career move. It was a good retail move, a good cuisine move, not a good taxi move or a great quality of pavement move, but definitely a career move that ranked amongst the highest and the best. Tricia was a TV anchor person, and New York was where most of the world’s TV was anchored. Tricia’s TV anchoring had been done exclusively in Britain up to that point: regional news, then breakfast news, early evening news. She would have been called, if the language allowed, a rapidly rising anchor, but... hey, this is television, what does it matter? She was a rapidly rising anchor. She had what it took: great hair, a profound understand- ing of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn’t care. Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else in life becomes eerily easy. Tricia had only ever missed one opportunity. These days it didn’t even make her tremble quite so much as it used to to think about it. She guessed it was that bit of her that had gone dead.

All I wanted to say,” bellowed the computer, “is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” He paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone’s attention, before continuing more quietly. “But the program will take me a little while to run.” Fook glanced impatiently at his watch. “How long?” he said. “Seven and a half million years,” said Deep Thought. Lunkwill and Fook blinked at each other. “Seven and a half million years!” they cried in chorus. “Yes,” declaimed Deep Thought, “I said I’d have to think about it, didn’t I? And it occurs to me that running a program like this is bound to create an enormous amount of popular publicity for the whole are of philosophy in general. Everyone’s going to have their own theories about what answer I’m eventually going to come up with, and who better, to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and maligning each other in the popular press, and so long as you have clever agents, you can keep yourselves on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?” The two philosophers gaped at him. “Bloody hell,” said Majikthise, “now that is what I call thinking. Here, Vroomfondel, why do we never think of things like that?” “Dunno,” said Vroomfondel in an awed whisper; “think our brains must be too highly trained, Majikthise.” So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a life-style beyond their wildest dreams.

The Sandwich Maker would pass what he had made to his assistant who would then add a few slices of newcumber and fladish and a touch of splagberry sauce, and then apply the topmost layer of bread and cut the sandwich with a fourth and altogether plainer knife. It was not that these were not also skilful operations, but they were lesser skills to be performed by a dedicated apprentice who would one day, when the Sandwich Maker finally laid down his tools, take over from him. It was an exalted position and that apprentice, Drimple, was the envy of his fellows. There were those in the village who were happy chopping wood, those who were content carrying water, but to be the Sandwich Maker was very heaven. And so the Sandwich Maker sang as he worked. He was using the last of the year’s salted meat. It was a little past its best now, but still the rich savour of Perfectly Normal Beast meat was something unsurpassed in any of the Sandwich Maker’s previous experience. Next week it was anticipated that the Perfectly Normal Beasts would appear again for their regular migration, whereupon the whole village would once again be plunged into frenetic action: hunting the Beasts, killing perhaps six, maybe even seven dozen of the thousands that thundered past. Then the Beasts must be rapidly butchered and cleaned, with most of the meat salted to keep it through the winter months until the return migration in the spring, which would replenish their supplies. The very best of the meat would be roasted straight away for the feast that marked the Autumn Passage. The celebrations would last for three days of sheer exuberance, dancing and stories that Old Thrashbarg would tell of how the hunt had gone, stories that he would have been busy sitting making up in his hut while the rest of the village was out doing the actual hunting. And then the very, very best of the meat would be saved from the feast and delivered cold to the Sandwich Maker. And the Sandwich Maker would exercise on it the skills that he had brought to them from the gods, and make the exquisite Sandwiches of the Third Season, of which the whole village would partake before beginning, the next day, to prepare themselves for the rigours of the coming winter. Today he was just making ordinary sandwiches, if such delicacies, so lovingly crafted, could ever be called ordinary. Today his assistant was away so the Sandwich Maker was applying his own garnish, which he was happy to do. He was happy with just about everything in fact.

There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound: choosing the right bread for instance. The Sandwich Maker had spent many months in daily consultation and experiment with Grarp the baker and eventually they had between them created a loaf of exactly the consistency that was dense enough to slice thinly and neatly, while still being light, moist and having that fine nutty flavour which best enhanced the savour of roast Perfectly Normal Beast flesh. There was also the geometry of the slice to be refined: the precise relationships between the width and height of the slice and also its thickness which would give the proper sense of bulk and weight to the finished sandwich: here again, lightness was a virtue, but so too were firmness, generosity and that promise of succulence and savour that is the hallmark of a truly intense sandwich experience. The proper tools, of course, were crucial, and many were the days that the Sandwich Maker, when not engaged with the Baker at his oven, would spend with Strinder the Tool Maker, weighing and balancing knives, taking them to the forge and back again. Suppleness, strength, keenness of edge, length and balance were all enthusiastically debated, theories put forward, tested, refined, and many was the evening when the Sandwich Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker’s forge making slow sweeping movements through the air trying one knife after another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a fourth. Three knives altogether were required. First there was the knife for the slicing of the bread: a firm, authoritative blade which imposed a clear and defining will on a loaf. Then there was the butter-spreading knife, which was a whippy little number but still with a firm backbone to it. Early versions had been a little too whippy, but now the combination of flexibility with a core of strength was exactly right to achieve the maximum smoothness and grace of spread. The chief amongst the knives, of course, was the carving knife. This was the knife that would not merely impose its will on the medium through which it moved, as did the bread knife; it must work with it, be guided by the grain of the meat, to achieve slices of the most exquisite consistency and translucency, that would slide away in filmy folds from the main hunk of meat. The Sandwich Maker would then flip each sheet with a smooth flick of the wrist on to the beautifully proportioned lower bread slice, trim it with four deft strokes and then at last perform the magic that the children of the village so longed to gather round and watch with rapt attention and wonder. With just four more dexterous flips of the knife he would assemble the trimmings into a perfectly fitting jigsaw of pieces on top of the primary slice. For every sandwich the size and shape of the trimmings were different, but the Sandwich Maker would always effortlessly and without hesitation assemble them into a pattern which fitted perfectly. A second layer of meat and a second layer of trimmings, and the main act of creation would be accomplished.