I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is good sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that that mind, like the author’s, begins to create.

— Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick Quotes

The idea of Saint Paul whirling around in the giant teacups wile composing First Corinthians, as Paris TV films him with a telephoto lens – that just can’t be. Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not.

— Philip K. Dick

The alleged sheep contained an oat-tropic circuit; at the sight of such cereals it would scramble up convincingly and amble over.

— Philip K. Dick

Entering the phone booth, he did a phone thing.

— Philip K. Dick

Her heart, Bob Arctor reflected, was an empty kitchen: floor tile and water pipes and a drainboard with pale scrubbed surfaces and one abandoned glass on the edge of the sink that nobody cared about.

— Philip K. Dick

May I stop at that amphetamine dispenser and put in my dime? I need a stimulant to cheer me up.

— Philip K. Dick

The first thing to depart in mental illness is the familiar. And what takes its place is bad news because not only can you not understand it, you also cannot communicate it to other people. The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know.

— Philip K. Dick

I think they should be the rulers,’ Juliana said, pausing. ‘They always were the best. The British.

— Philip K. Dick

I need you,” he said. Otherwise I’m going to die, he said to himself.

— Philip K. Dick

They expected miracles, evidently, as if the Nazis could remold the world by magic. No, it was science and technology and that fabulous talent for hard work; the Germans never stopped applying themselves. And when they did a task, they did it right.

— Philip K. Dick

You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all.

— Philip K. Dick

One of God’s greatest mercies is that he keeps us perpetually occluded.

— Philip K. Dick

You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean, before they came here I could stand it, being alone in the building. But now it’s changed. You can’t go back, he thought. You can’t go from people to nonpeople. In panic he thought, I’m dependent on them. Thank god they stayed.

— Philip K. Dick

No science in it. Nor set in future. Science fiction deals with future, in particular future where science has advanced over now. Book fits neither premise.” “But,” Paul said, “it deals with alternate present.

— Philip K. Dick

Half to himself, Fat said, “He causes things to look different so it would appear time has passed.

— Philip K. Dick

Remove his shirt,” a voice stated. No doubt building’s physician. Highly authoritative tone; Mr. Tagomi smiled. Tone is everything.

— Philip K. Dick

We did not fall because of a moral error; we fell because of an intellectual error: that of taking the phenomenal world as real. Therefore we are morally innocent. It is the Empire in its various disguised polyforms that tells us we have sinned.

— Philip K. Dick

Body of yin, soul of yang.

— Philip K. Dick

Isn’t it true,” Mr. Tagomi said, “that no man should be the instrument for another’s needs?” He leaned forward urgently. “Please give me your neutral Scandinavian opinion.

— Philip K. Dick

What did anything mean? he wondered. And how did a person tell? We can never be certain. Not until our dying day. And maybe not even then. All of us, he thought, are down here fumbling around, guessing and calculating. Doing the best we can.

— Philip K. Dick

10. Apollonius of Tyana, writing as Hermes Trismegistos, said, “That which is above is that which is below.” By this he meant to tell us that our universe is a hologram, but he lacked the term.

— Philip K. Dick
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