The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks.

It was his subconscious which told him this - that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing.

Dirk was unused to making such a minuscule impact on anybody. He checked to be sure that he did have his huge leather coat and his absurd red hat on and that he was properly and dramatically silhouetted by the light of the doorway. He felt momentarily deflated and said, "Er..." by way of self-introduction, but it didn't get the boy's attention. He didn't like this. The kid was deliberately and maliciously watching television at him.

"A suffusion of yellow." (A calculator's response to the question of any math problem with an answer larger than four.)

(All from Douglas Adams, the most ineffable writer since Chaucer).


A