Quotes from Philip K. Dick

You might be able to adjust to this, the fall of our world, the old world.

He saw only an empty white expanse, a focused glare, as if there were now no 3-D slide in the projector at all. The light, he thought, that underlies the play of phenomena which we call reality.

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain - Roy Batty of Blade Runner

Anyhow, that's not what I want. I feel restless. As if there's something I should be doing. Something undone. Some kind of work or something uncompleted. You're right, I suppose. It comes of having sat at a desk for years." "You must try to adjust. Realize that it's over. The old life is gone. Dead." "I guess so.

it is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane

tiene por casualidad una droga cuyo efecto, en unos términos semejantes a los del órgano Hammerstein, corresponda a algunos fragmentos del movimiento coral de la Novena de Beethoven?

cuando se crea algo, adquiere vida propia y deja de pertenecer al creador que la ha moldeado y dirigido según sus deseos.

He built, and the more he built the more he enjoyed building. By now the city was over eighty miles deep and five miles in diameter. The whole island had been converted into a single vast city that honeycombed and interlaced farther each day. Eventually it would reach the land beyond the ocean; then the work would begin in earnest.

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. How the land became plastic, he thought, remembering the fairy tale How the Sea Became Salt.

You're confusing technology with culture. You look at this and say, 'What a great civilization man has built,' when you really mean, 'What a great technology mankind has developed.' There's all the difference in the world. Technology is of the mind and hands. Civilization is of the spirit—and spiritually we are still in the Dark Ages.

and vast ugly teeth strove to crunch him, crunch him with avid relish.

Ele está refletindo — disse Coelho —Experimentando a ideia. Não é, Chuck? — É… é — Chuck conseguiu responder. Agora tinha certeza de que Lorde Gosma Veloz procurara Hentman. Alguma coisa avassaladora e lúgubre se desdobrava diante dele, tomando-o de supetão; sentia-se insignificante no meio daquilo, fosse o que fosse. E não tinha como escapulir.

Place there is none; we go backward and forward, and there is no place. —St. Augustine

Spegnetevi, vane luci, più non brillate! Non v'è notte nera a sufficienza per chi, In preda alla disperazione, piange la persa fortuna. La luce altro non fa che svelare la vergogna.

The urge, the longing, to take another shower was overwhelming him.

What a tragic world this is, he reflected. Those down here are prisoners, and the ultimate tragedy is that they don't know it; they think they are free because they never have been free, and do not understand what it means. This is a prison, and few men have guessed. But I know, he said to himself. Because that is why I am here. To burn the walls, to tear down the metal gates, to break each chain.

You don't disappoint me. I like you very much. I'm sure it is the climate that's getting you down.

A bad emotion, he knew. Curiosity was, especially in Party activities, often a terminal state careerwise.

Science fiction acts best as a guide to help people cope with the present. It should sharpen our concern and ability to handle current problems. It shouldn't just be an escape.

Only in a perfect flight from nothingness is Being to be found in all its purity. —St. Bonaventura

Começou a caminhar sem destino, as mãos nos bolsos, descendo a canaleta de pedestres. Os minutos passavam e cada vez o medo e o desalento aumentavam mais. Tudo desmoronava ao seu redor. Ele se sentia incapaz de evitar o colapso; limitava-se a testemunhá-lo, completamente impotente, engolfado por acontecimentos demasiado poderosos para que pudesse compreendê-los.

But what does it matter? Verne said. The rules and codes were artificial. They were good only as long as they could be enforced. Now there's no one to enforce them. So they don't have any meaning. They were just conventions. Don't confuse them with innate moral laws. They were just rules, nothing more. Man made. They came, now they're gone again. The yuks will have their own rules.

I said. "What you want is evil and immoral; this is what is destroying the fabric of our society. Mutual spying by friend upon friend is the most insidious wickedness that Ferris Fremont has inflicted on a formerly free people. You can write that down, Miss Kaplan, and put it in my file; better yet, you can paste it on the outside of my file as my official statement to all of you.

Barris said, "That girl is disturbed. She should be forcibly committed. Do you realize that all our taxes were raised by her stealing those stamps? He sounded angry again. Write the government and tell them, (…) ask Donna for a stamp to mail it; she'll sell you one." - Exchange between Barris and Luckman