Original artwork, not a still
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish · 1984
“Listen, bud,” said Ford, “if I had one Altairan dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say ‘That’s terrible’ I wouldn’t be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Addressing someone as "bud", the speaker says that a payment for every time one part of the universe pronounced another part terrible would have made the speaker rich enough to avoid sitting around like a lemon in search of a gin. Such gloomy verdicts, the wry complaint suggests, are endless, cheap and unhelpful.
Context reviewed
