Credit where credit’s due:

A commenter called Boogieman posted this on a news site:

“The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn’t know whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react.”

— Douglas Adams; “The Restaurant At the End of the Universe”