zaphod Softly spoken "One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so - but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about it." Man, it took me ages to find that quote. I don't know the book as inside-out as he seems to. He told me once that he admired Zaphod, that this was "a better way to be". And he clearly meant it. He's fucking talented, but often pretend not to be. But I couldn't agree with Trillian more. You fool; you'll never learn anything that way. 020416 ... random blown cherry 'Yeah, but Zaphod old mate, you want to look after yourself you know,' Zaphod shrugged. 'I mean, don't you have and inkling of the reasons for all this?' asked Ford. Zaphod thought hard about this and doubts seemed to cross his mind. 'No,' he said at last, 'I don't seem to be letting myself into any of my secrets. Still,' he added on further reflection, 'I can understand that. I wouldn't trust myself further than I could spit a rat.' ----------- ....He did know that there were better reasons than these, but that they were buried in a dark, locked off section of his two brains. He wished the dark, locked off section of his two brains would go away because they occasionally surfaced momentarily and put strange things into the light, fun sections of his mind and tried to deflect him from what he saw as being the basic business of his life, which was to have a wonderfully good time. 020417 ... blown cherry well we all know he's got two brains, at least since the prodigal psyche returned home.... 020417 ... Photophobe ok. Stop it, both of you. 020418 ... blown cherry :P :P 020418 ... CRO that first quote seems to have merit. I'm always being accused of being too smart - not smartass or anything like that, it's just that i know more about other people and that scares them. From experience, playing dumb is a good thing. and necessary around a lot of people too 020510 ... sabbie so i need to look up the quote about zaphod pretending to be stupid, so i go onto google and look it up, find the one and open it and its on fucking blather. of course. blather is actually a benign god who looks after it's parishiners 030415 ... the president of the universe "I'm so hip i can hardly see past my own pelvis" 030416 ... minnesota_chris sometimes jerks have all the luck! 030416 ... User24 zaphod beeblebrox is one smart guy. 030420 ... gin and tonic He really knows where his towel is. 030420 ... User24 yeah, but would he be classed as a hoopy frood? 030421 what's it to you? who go blather from