Original artwork, not a still
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ‧ 1979
Arthur glanced around him once more, and then down at himself, at the sweaty disheveled clothes he had been lying in the mud in on Thursday morning. “I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle,” he muttered to himself.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
It is Arthur's defining joke, English politeness applied to cosmic catastrophe. He treats the loss of his house, his planet and his entire species as a lifestyle problem, as though the trouble were a clash of tastes. Fans quote it whenever a week has gone spectacularly wrong, and the radio version, which turns it into a rant about his kind of planet, is the one most people remember.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyShow the scene
Early in the first novel the Earth has been destroyed, and Arthur Dent has been thrown out of a Vogon airlock and improbably rescued by a stolen starship. He looks around at his strange new surroundings, then down at the sweaty clothes he lay in the mud in on Thursday morning, when only his house was under threat. Dishevelled, dressing-gowned and homeless on a galactic scale, he mutters to himself that he seems to be having tremendous difficulty with his lifestyle. The radio series gives him a longer rant on the same theme.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxyradio series, Fit the FourthReference checked
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy script (davesource)pub sceneReference checked
Context reviewed
