How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Ford's copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy smashed into another section of the control console with the combined result that the guide started to explain to anyone who cared to listen about the best ways of smuggling Antarean parakeet glands out of Antares (an Antarean parakeet gland stuck on a small stick is a revolting but much sought after cocktail delicacy and very large sums of money are often paid for them by very rich idiots who want to impress other very rich idiots), and the ship suddenly dropped out of the sky like a stone. (17.73)
There are a couple layers of stupidity here, one of them nicely marked out by a parenthetical remark. (1) Here the crew of the Heart of Gold is being pretty foolish, stealing a ship that they can't drive very well, leading to it dropping like "a stone." (2) Here's a potentially unhelpful article in the Guide (which wouldn't be the first unhelpful article—see our write-up in "Symbols"). And (3) rich idiots try to impress each other with disgusting Antarean parakeet glands. Nobody comes out of this quote looking smart.
Quote #8
"I freewheel a lot. I get an idea to do something, and, hey, why not, I do it. I reckon I'll become President of the Galaxy, and it just happens, it's easy. I decide to steal this ship. I decide to look for Magrathea, and it all just happens. […] And then whenever I stop and think—why did I want to do something?—how did I work out how to do it?—I get a very strong desire just to stop thinking about it." (20.71)
This is a central problem of Zaphod's character: it's hard to know how dumb he is since he locked part of his brain away. He certainly doesn't sound like a mastermind here—and yet he's the one with the plan. It makes you wonder how foolish the other people have to be to follow him.
Quote #9
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons. (23.1)
In Hitchhiker's Guide, all the things that we think make us smart—"the wheel, New York, wars"—actually might be examples that we're not so smart after all. This is an example of Adams's comic style: taking something we think and turning it around so it's the reverse. Note that the narrator starts off this section by noting a general truth that we can all agree on—"things are not always what they seem"—but then jokes that maybe the dolphins had it right, and we should've spent all our time frolicking. It's a slippery slope from agreeing with the first part to agreeing with the second.