經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第18章4
There really is a lot of that now isn't it?
And wow! Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ... ow ... ound ... round ... ground! That's it! That's a good name — ground!
I wonder if it will be friends with me?
And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.
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.
"Are we taking this robot with us?" said Ford, looking with distaste at Marvin who was standing in an awkward hunched posture in the corner under a small palm tree.
Zaphod glanced away from the mirror screens which presented a panoramic view of the blighted landscape on which the Heart of Gold had now landed.
"Oh, the Paranoid Android," he said. "Yeah, we'll take him."
"But what are supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?"
"You think you've got problems," said Marvin as if he was addressing a newly occupied coffin, "what are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't bother to answer that, I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level."
Trillian burst in through the door from her cabin.
"My white mice have escaped!" she said.
這次肯定有很多風，不是嗎？
喔！嘿！這個突然間朝着我很快地衝過來的東西是什麼？非常、非常快。這麼大，這麼平坦，這麼圓，它一定得有個聽上去氣派的名字，就像……嗯……哦……大地！就是它了！真是個好名字——大地！
我想知道它會和我成爲朋友嗎？
一聲猛烈撞擊後，餘下的全都是寂靜。
非常奇怪，當這盆牽牛花下墜時，它腦海中劃過的念頭居然是，哦，不，千萬別再來一次了。許多人都曾經推測，如果我們能夠確切地知道這盆牽牛花爲什麼會這麼想的話，那麼我們對宇宙的瞭解會比現在深入得多。
“我們要帶上這個機器人嗎？”福特厭惡地看着馬文說。馬文正笨拙地站在角落裏的一株小棕櫚樹下面。
贊福德盯着鏡面屏幕，上面正在顯示黃金之心號剛剛着陸的那片荒涼大地的全景。
“哦，這個機器人幻想狂。”他回答說，“是的，我們要帶上他。”
“可是你指望這個狂躁而又沮喪的機器人能做些什麼呢？”
“你認爲你自己有麻煩，”馬文說，彷彿是對着一具剛剛入殮的屍體發表演說，“可是設想一下你是一個狂躁而又沮喪的機器人吧，那時你才知道真正的麻煩是什麼滋味。那時你會怎麼辦？不，別費心回答這個問題了，即使我不知道答案。我比你聰明5萬倍，要我嘗試着按照你的水平去思考簡直讓我頭痛不已。”
崔莉恩突然從自己的房間闖進來。
“我的小白鼠跑掉了！”她說。
