The following is my favourite scene in all of literature. It’s just… perfect.

Fit the Ninth: Scene 1.
Int. Heart of Gold

ARTHUR: Ford?
FORD: Yeah?
ARTHUR: He’s totally mad, isn’t he?
FORD: Well, the border between madness and genius is very narrow.
ARTHUR: So is the Berlin Wall.
FORD: The Berlin - ?
ARTHUR: Oh, the Berlin Wall… the border between East and West Germany. It’s very narrow. I mean the point I’m making -
FORD: Was very narrow. Get your tenses right.
ARTHUR: …Thank you.

FORD: Anything wrong?
ARTHUR: On Earth we have a word -
FORD: - Had a word.
ARTHUR: Had a word… called “tact”.
FORD: Oh yeah?
ARTHUR: Yes.
FORD: And what happened to it?
ARTHUR: Well apparently it’s not in common usage… except on Earth.
FORD: No, no, no. Not the word. The Earth.
ARTHUR: You know very well: it got demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
FORD: Ah!, but that was all done away with Centuries ago. No one demolishes planets anymore.
ARTHUR: Well the Vogons did.
FORD: The Vogons… Yeah. Odd that.
ARTHUR: You mean they had another reason?
FORD: Well it could be… Probably not important though. I only bring it up because I’ve been watching the screen, and there’s been a Vogon Fleet five light-years behind us for the last half hour.
ARTHUR: What?!
FORD: Where’s Zaphod?
ARTHUR: A Vogon Fleet?
FORD: Yeah. Where’s Zaphod?
ARTHUR: He… well… he’s in his cabin signing photographs of himself: “To myself with frank admiration.” But why are the Vogons following us?

FORD: Hey Marvin!
MARVIN: What do you want?
FORD: Give Zaphod a yell will you?
MARVIN: Ahhh. Mind-taxing time again is it?
FORD: Just get on with it.
MARVIN: I’ve just worked out an answer to the square root of minus one.
FORD: Go and get Zaphod.
MARVIN: It’s never been worked out before. It’s always been thought impossible.
FORD: Go and get -
MARVIN: I’m going. Pausing only to reconstruct the whole infrastructure of integral mathematics in his head, he went about his humble task. Never thinking to ask for reward, recognition, or even a moment’s ease from the terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side. “Fetch Beeblebrox,” they say, and forth he goes.

ARTHUR: Don’t you think we should do something for him?
FORD: Hmm… we could rip out his voice-box for a start.
ARTHUR: What are you in such a mood about?
FORD: I’m worried about them.
ARTHUR: The Vogons?
FORD: The Vogons, yeah.