Lotte

“As is often the case, it was the easier choice to make and the more difficult choice to live with.”
― Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Did you see a large robotic hand run by here just now?" I said, having caught enough of my breath to speak.
"Hmm?" he said, as if he were just realizing we were talking to him. "Ah. Yes, it just went inside."
"What?"
"Well, it walked up and looked around as if it wanted to go inside, so I let it inside. It had not strictly obeyed the dress code, but while the rules are both specific and comprehensive, I thought it made sense to allow an exception in the case of an autonomous hand.”
― Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

“Just move toward the back wall. There's less fire there."
"My new favorite kind of fire.”
― Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing