Philip K. Dick Quotes

Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.

Reality is just a point of view.

In a society of criminals, the innocent man goes to jail.

If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.

Everything in life is just for a while.

There is no route out of the maze. The maze shifts as you move through it, because it is alive.

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

I am a reader. I am a writer. People assume I do these things to escape. You couldn't be more right. I'm escaping a world I don't like. A world I have no control in. In this world, I am nothing. I am a color, a height, a weight, a number. But in the world of books and writing, I am amazing. I am powerful. I am different. People are better. Worlds are endless. Change is possible. Life is manageable.

This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance.

How much of what we call 'reality' is actually out there or rather within our own head?

Reality denied comes back to haunt.

It's not what happened but how it is told.

Just because something bears the aspect of the inevitable one should not, therefore, go along willingly with it.

When two people dream the same dream, it ceases to be an illusion.

Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. . . If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others?

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

I'm not much but I'm all I have.

You're killing yourself with cynicism. Your idols got taken away from you one by one and now you have nothing to give your love to.

There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you're lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.

To live is to be haunted.

Activity does not necessarily mean life.