"Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books."

i've started dogearing the books i read, and writing down my favorite lines. these are some of the bits i liked most...

Whenever this happened he used to experience a peculiar tingling round the back of his neck that would slowly creep up across his cheeks and heat his brow. The image of mud and grass and lots of little jeering boys flinging it at him suddenly came vividly to his mind at this moment. (163)

The stone-cold fear which had been hovering around Arthur all this time, waiting for its moment, recognized that its moment had now come and pounced on him. He tried to fight it off. He dropped into a kind of alert crouch that he had once seen somebody do on television, but it must have been someone with stronger knees. He peered huntedly into the darkness.
    'Er, hello?' he said.
    He cleared his throat and said it again, more loudly and without the 'er'. At some distance down the corridor it seemed suddenly as if somebody started to beat on a bass drum.
    He listed to it for a few seconds and realized that it was just his heart beating.
    He listened for a few seconds more and realized that it wasn't his heart, it was somebody down the corridor beating on a bass drum. (386)

Mr. Prosser's mouth opened and closed a couple of times whilst his mind was for a moment filled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of Arthur Dent's house being consumed with fire and Arthur himself running screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding from his back. Mr. Prosser was often bothered with visions like these and they made him feel very nervous. He stuttered for a moment and then pulled himself together. (20)

Motionless they hung, huge, heavy, steady in the sky, a blasphemy against nature. Many people went straight into shock as their minds tried to encompass what they were looking at. The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. (35)

So saying, they turned on their heels and walked out of the door and into a lifestyle beyond their wildest dreams. (124)

'And now, ladies and gentlemen,' he beamed, 'is everyone having one last wonderful time?'
     'Yes,' called out the sort of people who call out 'yes' when comedians ask them if they're having a wonderful time. (229)

They stood about waist high and were constructed of what appeared to be white marble, which is almost certainly what it was -- something that only appeared to be white marble. (261)

Nothing happened.
     For a full two minutes nothing continued to happen. (285)

Arthur suspected a streak of masochism in Ford Prefect -- the increasing difficulty of the journey seemed to give him a sense of purpose that was otherwise lacking. He strode onwards relentlessly. (288)

Slowly, however, the implications of the idea began to be understood. To begin with it had been too stark, too crazy, too much what the man in the street would have said, 'Oh yes, I could have told you that,' about. Then some phrases like 'Interactive Subjectivity Frameworks' were invented, and everybody was able to relax and get on with it. (342)

Zaphod did not want to tangle with them and, deciding that just as discretion was the better part of valour, so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a cupboard. (432)

He actually caught himself saying things like 'Yippee' as he pranced ridiculously round the house. Her eyes, her hair, her voice, everything… (514)

She shook her head, and shook it again, as if trying to clear it, which is what she was trying to do. (535)