How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
With a microsecond pause, and a finely calculated micromodulation of pitch and timbre—nothing you could actually take offense at—Marvin managed to convey his utter contempt and horror of all things human. (11.37)
Marvin may be a robot, but like all robots, he's very subtle with his body language. The narrator really pushes the subtlety at the beginning of this sentence—"microsecond, finely calculated, micromodulation"—and then wallops us the hugeness of Marvin's message: "utter contempt and horror of all things human." That's a huge message to pass in a tiny bit of body language. Do you think anyone there got it?
Quote #5
"That's very good thinking you know. Turn on the Improbability Drive for a second without first activating the proofing screens. Hey, kid, you just saved our lives, you know that?"
"Oh," said Arthur, "well, it was nothing really ..."
"Was it?" said Zaphod. "Oh well, forget it then. OK, computer, take us in to land." (18.14-6)
As we noted in the Writing Style section, Adams enjoys reworking these clichés to make us pay attention to what they actually say. So when Arthur says "it was nothing," Zaphod believes him and moves on. In other words, this moment of communication fails because Zaphod receives the message that Arthur says but not the meaning that Arthur intends.
Quote #6
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now. (18.36)
As with the whale (oh, poor, sweet whale), the bowl of petunias is just talking to itself here—but somehow we get to listen in its final thoughts. Unfortunately, we have no idea what the bowl of petunias was trying to communicate here, and the narrator comes out and tells us as much. If communication worked in Hitchhiker's Guide, we might have a better idea of what all this absurdity means.