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Philip K. Dick Quotes
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Philip Kindred Dick was an American science fiction writer. Dick explored philosophical, social, and political themes in his novels with plots dominated by monopolistic corporations, alternative universes, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. His work reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology, and often drew upon his life experiences in addressing the nature of reality, identity, drug abuse, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences.

Born in Illinois before moving to California, Dick began publishing science fiction stories in the 1950s, initially finding little commercial success. His 1962 alternative history novel The Man in the High Castle earned Dick early acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel. He followed with science fiction novels such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ubik . His 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel. Following a series of religious experiences in February–March 1974, Dick's work engaged more explicitly with issues of theology, philosophy, and the nature of reality, as in such novels as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS . A collection of his non-fiction writing on these themes was published posthumously as The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick . He died in 1982 of a stroke, aged 53.

In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. A variety of popular films based on his works have been produced, including Blade Runner , Total Recall , Minority Report , A Scanner Darkly , and The Adjustment Bureau . In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.

✵ 16. December 1928 – 2. March 1982
Philip K. Dick photo
Philip K. Dick: 278   quotes 5   likes

Philip K. Dick Quotes

“In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy.”

Philip K. Dick

"The Day the Gods Stopped Laughing," unpublished article written in the late 60's, quoted in To The High Castle: Philip K. Dick: A Life 1928-1962 (1989) by Gregg Rickman

Law , Knowledge , Science

“What does it mean, insane? A legal definition. What do I mean? I feel it, see it, but what is it? It is something they do, something they are. It is their unconsciousness…Do they ignore parts of reality? Yes. But it is more. It is their plans…Their view; it is cosmic…They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles of space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

Life , Feeling , Reality , Parting

“Explain it,” Hamilton muttered. “This place—this bar. Why doesn’t God erase it? If this world operates by moral laws—”
“This bar is necessary to the moral order. This is a sinkpit of corruption and vice, a fleshpot of iniquity. You think salvation can function without damnation? You think virtue can exist without sin? That’s the trouble with you atheists; you don’t grasp the mechanics of evil. Get on the inside and enjoy life, man. If you’re one of the Faithful, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Opportunist.”

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

“Bet your sweet soul.”
Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 5 (p. 66)

Life , God , World , Faith

“People just have no criterion left to evaluate the importance of things. I think the only thing that would really affect people would be the announcement that the world was going to be blown up by the hydrogen bomb. I think that would really affect people. I think they would react to that. But outside of that, I don't think they would react to anything. "Peking has been wiped out by an earthquake, and the RTD — the bus strike is still on."”

Philip K. Dick

And some guy says, "Damnit! I'll have to walk to work!"
Quoted in Daniel DePerez, "An Interview with Philip K. Dick," http://www.philipkdickfans.com/frank/sfrinter.htm Science Fiction Review, No. 19, Vol. 5, no. 3 (August 1976)

People , World , Guy , Thinking

“If you are wise, Matson said to himself grimly, you never take one-way trips. Anywhere. Even to Boise, Idaho…even across the street. Be certain, when you start, that you can scramble back.”

Philip K. Dick

Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 3 (p. 27)

Way

““Sometimes I wish I knew how to go crazy. I forget how.”
“It’s a lost art,” Hank said. “Maybe there’s an instruction manual on it.””

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 4 (p. 56)

Art , Forgetting

“The electric things have their life too. Paltry as those lives are.”

Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Source: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Chapter 22 (p. 241)

Life

“I am not in a position to enjoy sexual relations.”

Philip K. Dick

Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 12 (p. 132)

“What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me—into us—clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can’t any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone’s sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we’ll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 11 (p. 185)

Hope , Way , Heart , Dead

“A philosophical problem of no importance or meaning,” Joe said. “And incapable of being proved one way or the other.”

Philip K. Dick book Ubik

Source: Ubik (1969), Chapter 9 (p. 115)

Way , Problem

“You were supposed to have been in the Sector when the adjustment began. Because of an error you were not. You came into the Sector late — during the adjustment itself. You fled, and when you returned it was over. You saw, and you should not have seen. Instead of a witness you should have been part of the adjustment. Like the others, you should have undergone changes.”

Philip K. Dick book Adjustment Team

Adjustment Team (1954)

Error , Change , Parting

“"The Neanderthal probably thought the Cro-Magnon man had merely an improved line. A little more advanced ability to conjure up symbols and shape flint. From your description, this thing is more radical than a mere improvement."
"This thing," Baines said slowly, "has an ability to predict. So far, it's been able to stay alive. It's been able to cope with situations better than you or I could. How long do you think we'd stay alive in that chamber, with energy beams blazing down at us? In a sense it's got the ultimate survival ability. If it can always be accurate —"”

Philip K. Dick

The Golden Man (1954)

Thinking , Sense

“That life had been one without excitement, with no adventure. It had been too safe. All the elements that made it up were right there before his eyes, and nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 4 (p. 64)

Life , Secret

“In this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while a tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 4 (p. 64)

World

“Barefoot conducts his seminars on his houseboat in Sausalito. It costs a hundred dollars to find out why we are on this Earth. You also get a sandwich, but I wasn't hungry that day. John Lennon had just been killed and I think I know why we are on this Earth; it's to find out that what you love the most will be taken away from you, probably due to an error in high places rather than by design.”

Philip K. Dick The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Page 7
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982)

Love , Error , Thinking

“I'm a sick man. And the more I see, the sicker I get. I'm so sick I think everybody else is sick and I'm the only healthy person. That's bad off, isn't it?”

Philip K. Dick book Solar Lottery

Solar Lottery (1955)

Thinking , Personality

““People like your wife are dangerous.”
“Why?” Hamilton asked.
“They don’t belong to any group. They fool around with everything. As soon as we turn our back—”
“So you destroy them. You turn them over to the lunatic patriots.”
“The lunatic patriots,” McFeyffe said, “we can understand. But not your wife. She signs Party peace petitions and she reads the Chicago Tribune. People like her—they’re more of a menace to Party discipline than any other bunch. The cult of individualism. The idealist with his own law, his own ethics. Refusing to accept authority. It undermines society. It topples the whole structure. Nothing lasting can be built on it. People like your wife just won’t take orders.””

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 16 (p. 231)

People , Peace , Law , Fools

“I saw Substance D growing. I saw death rising from the earth, from the ground itself, in one blue field, in stubbled color.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 17 (p. 275)

Death , Color

“Ramp hawkers were peddling “methods,” low priced sure-fire theories guaranteed to predict bottle twitches and beat the whole Minimax game. The hawkers were ignored by the hurrying throngs of people; anybody with a genuine system of prediction would be using it, not selling it.”

Philip K. Dick book Solar Lottery

Source: Solar Lottery (1955), Chapter 1 (p. 4)

People , Game

“She could kill him easily. But the lash-tube wavered. Cris Johnson stood without fear; he wasn't at all afraid. Why not? Didn't he understand what it was? What the small metal tube could do to him?
"Of course," she said suddenly, in a choked whisper. "You can see ahead. You know I'm not going to kill you. Or you wouldn't have come here."”

Philip K. Dick

The Golden Man (1954)

Fear , Understanding

“The vidphone company let me off the hook.”

Philip K. Dick

Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 12 (p. 132)

“Cats have no souls,” Hamilton said morbidly, watching his tomcat avidly feed. “The most majestic cat in the universe would balance a carrot on his head for a bite of pork liver.”

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 3 (p. 30)

Soul , Cats , Universe

“The unconscious is selective, when it learns what to listen for.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 12 (p. 200)

Learning

“He now set down all the communications apparatus, rose stiffly from the chair and momentarily stood facing the misty, immobile, icebound shape of Joe Chip resting within its transparent plastic casket. Upright and silent, as it would be for the rest of eternity.”

Philip K. Dick book Ubik

Source: Ubik (1969), Chapter 14 (p. 189)

Communication

“I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards, I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what science fiction is all about.”

Philip K. Dick

"Now Wait For This Year", introduction to The Golden Man (anthology, 1980)

Love , People , World , Reality

“Hands in his pockets he began to walk aimlessly down the sidewalk runnel. And, each minute, feeling more and more scared and desperate. Everything was falling apart around him. And he seemed helpless to halt the collapse; he could only witness it, completely impotent, snatched up and gripped by processes too powerful for him to understand.”

Philip K. Dick book Clans of the Alphane Moon

Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 9 (p. 139)

Feeling , Understanding

“I feel the hot winds of karma driving me. Nevertheless I remain here. My training was correct: I must not shrink from the clear white light, for if I do, I will once more re-enter the cycle of birth and death, never knowing freedom, never obtaining release. The veil of maya will fall once more.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

Death , Feeling , Birth , Freedom

“He could not endure what he found himself going through, and he could not get away. It seemed to him as if he sat behind the tiller of his custom-made unique quibble, facing a red light, green light, amber light all at once; no rational response was possible. Her irrationality made it so. The terrible power, he thought, of illogic. Of the archetypes. Operating out of the drear depths of the collective unconscious which joined him and her — and everyone else — together. In a knot which could never be undone, so long as they lived.
No wonder, he thought, some people, many people, long for death.”

Philip K. Dick book Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Source: Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (1974), Chapter 5 (p. 54)

Death , People , Light

“Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small…and you will escape the jealousy of the great.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

God , Jealousy

“Writing is a lonely way of life. You shut yourself up in your study and work and work.”

Philip K. Dick

Introduction to The Golden Man (1980)

Life , Way , Study

“Life in Anaheim, California, was a commercial for itself, endlessly replayed. Nothing changed; it just spread out farther and farther in the form of neon ooze. What there was always more of had been congealed into permanence long ago, as if the automatic factory that cranked out these objects had jammed in the on position.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 2 (p. 31)

Life , Change

“In the early twentieth century the problem of production had been solved; after that it was the problem of consumption that plagued society. In the 1950s and '60s, consumer commodities and farm products began to pile up in vast towering mountains all over the Western World. As much as possible was given away — but that threatened to subvert the open market. By 1980, the pro tem solution was to heap up the products and burn them: billions of dollars of worth, week after week.”

Philip K. Dick book Solar Lottery

Source: Solar Lottery (1955), Chapter 2 (p. 16)

World , Mountain , Problem

“You must beware of seeing malice behind accidental injury.”

Philip K. Dick book Clans of the Alphane Moon

Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 11 (p. 196)

“Too bad, Matson thought archly, that George Hoffman didn’t discover more planets in more star systems habitable by us, the frail needs of living, sentient, mentating biochemical upright bipeds which we humans are.”

Philip K. Dick

Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 3 (p. 19)

Star

““We all make mistakes,” the cab said piously.
“But some of us,” Barney said, “make fatal ones.” First about our loved ones, our wife and children, and then about our employer, he said to himself.
The cab hummed on.
And then, he said to himself, we make one last one. About our whole life, summing it all up. Whether to take a job with Eldritch or go into the service. And whichever we choose we can know this:
It was the wrong alternative.”

Philip K. Dick book The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Source: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Chapter 7 (p. 119)

Love , Life , Children

“"His brain pattern has been fully scanned. But it takes time for them to plot it out. We're all running around like lunatics while he just sits there!" Wisdom poked a stubby finger at the window. "We caught him easily enough. He can't have much, can he? But I'd like to know what it is. Before we euth him."
"Maybe we should keep him alive until we know."
"Euth in forty-eight hours," Wisdom repeated stubbornly. "Whether we know or not. I don't like him. He gives me the creeps."”

Philip K. Dick

The Golden Man (1954)

Wisdom , Time

“God,” Eldritch said, “promises eternal life. I can do better; I can deliver it.”

Philip K. Dick book The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Source: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Chapter 6 (p. 86)

Life , God

“It's the fault of those physicists and that synchronicity theory, every particle being connected with every other; you can't fart without changing the balance in the universe. It makes living a funny joke with nobody around to laugh. I open a book and get a report on future events that even God would like to file and forget. And who am I? The wrong person; I can tell you that.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

God , Books , Universe , Change

“Insanity — to have to construct a picture of one's life, by making inquiries of others.”

Philip K. Dick book Martian Time-Slip

Martian Time-Slip (1964)

Life

“A rolling stone gathers no moss.'
Try as I might I could not remember the meaning. At last I hazarded, 'Well, it means a person who's always active and never pauses to reflect — ' No, that didn't sound right. I tried again. 'That means a man who is always active and keeps growing in mental and moral stature won't grow stale.' He was looking at me more intently, so I added by way of clarification, 'I mean, a man who's active and doesn't let grass grow under his feet, he'll get ahead in life.'
Doctor Nisea said, 'I see.' And I knew that I had revealed, for the purposes of legal diagnosis, a schizophrenic thinking disorder.
'What does it mean?' I asked. 'Did I get it backward?'
'Yes, I'm afraid so. The generally-accepted meaning of the proverb is the opposite of what you've given; it is generally taken to mean that a person who — '
'You don't have to tell me,' I broke in. 'I remember — I really knew it. A person who's unstable will never acquire anything of value.”

Philip K. Dick book We Can Build You

Source: We Can Build You (1972), chapter 17, page 224.

Life , Way , Thinking , Grass

“One of the most effective forms of industrial or military sabotage limits itself to damage that can never be thoroughly proven—or even proven at all—to be anything deliberate. It is like an invisible political movement; perhaps it isn’t there at all. If a bomb is wired to a car’s ignition, then obviously there is an enemy; if public building or a political headquarters is blown up, then there is a political enemy. But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs, if equipment merely fails to function, if it appears faulty, especially in a slow fashion, over a period of natural time, with numerous small failures and misfirings—then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 6 (p. 91)

Cars , Fashion , Failure , Nature

“Forty-two. His age had astounded him for years, and each time that he had sat so astounded, trying to figure out what had become of the young, slim man in his twenties, a whole additional year slipped by and had to be recorded, a continually growing sum which he could not reconcile with his self-image. He still saw himself, in his mind's eye, as youthful, and when he caught sight of himself in photographs he usually collapsed … Somebody took my actual physical presence away and substituted this, he had thought from time to time. Oh well, so it went.”

Philip K. Dick book A Maze of Death

A Maze of Death (1970)

Youth , Age , Time

““Isn’t there any way—” He broke off. Can’t the past be altered? he asked himself. Evidently not. Cause and effect work in only one direction, and change is real. So what’s gone is gone, and I might as well get out of here.”

Philip K. Dick book The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Source: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Chapter 10 (p. 173)

Way , Change , Past

“The hell with him, he thought bitterly. The hell with patriotism in general. In the specific and the abstract. Birds of a feather, soldiers and cops. Anti-intellectual and anti-Negro. Anti-everything except beer, dogs, cars and guns.”

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 2 (p. 15)

Dogs , Cars , Hell , Beer

““Why?” Hamilton lashed out suddenly and loudly. “Why the hell did God answer that prayer? Why not some of the others? Why not Bill Laws’s?”
“God approved of your prayer,” Silky said. “After all, it’s up to Him; He has to decide how He feels about it.”
“That’s terrible.”
Silky shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“How can you live with that? You never know what’s going to happen—there’s no order, no logic.” It infuriated him that she did not object, that it seemed natural to her. “We’re helpless; we have to depend on whim. It keeps us from being people—we’re like animals waiting to be fed. Rewarded or punished.””

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 6 (p. 77)

God , People , Law , Feeling

“They think they are free because they have never been free, and do not know what it means.”

Philip K. Dick The Divine Invasion

The Divine Invasion (1981)

Thinking

“He flushes at his presence in a comfort station.”

Philip K. Dick

Source: Lies, Inc. (1984), Chapter 13 (p. 139)

“We'll know homo superior when he comes — by definition. He'll be the one we won't be able to euth.”

Philip K. Dick

Source: The Golden Man (1954)

“But frankly—may I so speak?—your CIA people’s theory strikes me as a miserable bundle of random suspicions, a few separate facts strung together by an intricate structure of ad hoc theorizing, in which everyone is credited with enormous powers for intrigue. A much simpler view can be entertained with more common sense, and as a CIA employee you must be aware that, like all intelligence agencies, it lacks the faculty of common sense.”

Philip K. Dick book Clans of the Alphane Moon

Source: Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 8, (p. 123)

People , Intelligence , Sense

“Our methods may seem strange and indirect. Even incomprehensible. But I assure you we know what we're doing.”

Philip K. Dick book Adjustment Team

Adjustment Team (1954)