So long, and thanks for all the fish

And then, on one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place.

This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
(...)
This is her story.

One of the best prologues of a book ever, and it's from So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish, the fourth book in Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker trilogy.

If you haven't heard about these books before, you should go out and recklessly buy them. If you have seen the movie, forget it - reckless buying is the way to go here, too. If you have heard about it and already own a copy ... well, backup is nice.

Mind you, don't buy any translation. Some of the jokes depend heavily on the English language and Adams' clever way of twisting it. Honestly, it's the best birthday gift I ever got :)

• Wikipedia on The Hitchhiker's Guide
• Wikiquotes (lots of good ones there, but some of them might spoil parts of the books - read them first.)