Top 100 Philip K. Dick Quotes From The Science Fiction Writer

Philip K. Dick was a prolific science fiction writer born in Chicago in the United States of America.

Although he lived for just 54 years, this author of legendary sci-fi novels has written over 40 books and 100 short stories. He has many famous books like 'A Scanner Darkly' and 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?', the latter being the inspiration of the cult sci-fi movie 'Blade Runner'.

There are many Philip K. Dick quotes about words, Philip K. Dick quotes on love, Philip K. Dick life quotes, and quotes from Philip K. Dick books. Go ahead and take a look!

For more quotes, take a look at Harlan Ellison quotes and Ursula K le Guin quotes.
 

These are some awesome Philip K. Dick quotes from his bestselling book that was made into a movie in 2006 by Richard Linklater.

1. "Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

2. "He wondered how much of the insanity of the day--his insanity--had been real, or just induced as a contact lunacy, by the situation."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

3. "Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in fact, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

4. "In some respect, this was the worst part, the suffering of the animal, who could not complain."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

5. "The whole western part of the United States simultaneously running out and everybody crashing on the same day, probably about 6 A.M. Sunday morning."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

6. "He could--all the brothers and sisters could--see the lights from without, like showers of sparks, like a fun park for grownup kids."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

7. "But not much among these long dark evening shadows here was truly rational, at least in the strict sense."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

8. "He felt, in his head, loud voices singing: terrible music, as if the reality around him had gone sour."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

9. "A thousand little voices crying out their strangeness; he did not understand them, but at least he could see..."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

10. "Now fear had begun, a rational response instead of insanity."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

11. "The guilty, he reflected as he drove amid the heavy late-afternoon traffic as carefully as possible, may flee when no one pursues--he had heard that, and maybe that was true."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

12. "Too much soap and toilet paper, as the Yippies of the sixties knew, can screw up the entire sewage of an office building and force all the employees out for a week."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

13. "'Do you think that when we die and appear before God on Judgment Day, that our sins will be listed in chronological order on in order of severity, which could be ascending or descending, or alphabetically?"

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

14. "Life is only heavy and none else; there is only the one trip, all heavy."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

15. "You and your rip-off friends will never find the Coca-Cola formula, not in a million years."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

16. "God, how dark it is here, and totally silent. Nothing but me lives in this vacuum."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

17. "The main thing wrong with a reflection is not that it isn't real, but that it's reversed."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

18. "The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

19. "The Coca-Cola Company is a capitalist monopoly."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

20. "If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself."

- Philip K. Dick, 'A Scanner Darkly'.

Here are some Philip K. Dick quotes from his book 'Valis'.

21. “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane."

- Philip K. Dick.

22. "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."

- Philip K. Dick.

23. "The authorities were filled with hate."

- Philip K. Dick.

24. "I am, by profession, a science fiction writer. I deal in fantasies. My life is a fantasy."

- Philip K. Dick.

25. "What Fat wanted to know most of all was why she intended to kill herself."

- Philip K. Dick.

26. "...he presented her with all the wrong reasons for living. She would be doing it as a favor to others."

- Philip K. Dick.

27. "By thinking about madness, Horselover Fat slipped by degrees into madness."

- Philip K. Dick.

28. "I'm not sure God did anything at all for him; in fact in some ways God made him sicker."

- Philip K. Dick.

29. "Nothing could generate that color for light but God. In other words, normal light did not contain that color."

- Philip K. Dick.

30. "His brain had trapped all the information the beam of pink light had nailed him with, but how would he account for it?"

- Philip K. Dick.

31. "We are parts of the Brain; therefore we are language. Why, then, do we not know this?"

- Philip K. Dick.

32. "The origin of the word 'idiot' is the word 'private.'"

- Philip K. Dick.

33. "Each of us has become private, and no longer shares the common thought of the Brain, except at a subliminal level."

- Philip K. Dick.

34. "The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know."

- Philip K. Dick.

35. "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."

- Philip K. Dick.

36. "...our real life and purpose are conducted below our threshold of consciousness."

- Philip K. Dick.

37. "We do not even know what we are, let alone what the outer reality is of which we are parts."

- Philip K. Dick.

38. "All creation is a language and nothing but a language, which for some inexplicable reason we can't read outside and can't hear inside."

- Philip K. Dick.

39. "Fat later developed a theory that the universe is made out of information."

- Philip K. Dick.

40. "After he had encountered God, Fat developed a love for him which was not normal."

- Philip K. Dick.

Here are some amazing Philip K. Dick quotes from the most famous book by the author.

41. "You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe."

- Philip K. Dick.

42. "To say, 'Is your sheep genuine?' would be a worse breach of manners than to inquire whether a citizen's teeth, hair, or internal organs would test out authentic."

- Philip K. Dick.

43. "...he had become joined to the metabolism of other lives and until they rose he could not rise either."

- Philip K. Dick.

44. "I own an animal now, he said to himself. A living animal, not electric."

- Philip K. Dick.

45. "The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are."

- Philip K. Dick.

46. "Despair like that, about total reality, is self-perpetuating."

- Philip K. Dick.

47. "Awareness of the manifold possibilities open to me in the future..."

- Philip K. Dick.

48. "The morning air, spilling over with radioactive motes, gray and sun-beclouding, belched about him, haunting his nose; fie sniffed involuntarily the taint of death."

- Philip K. Dick.

49. "...within him an actual hatred once more manifested itself toward his electric sheep, which he had to tend, had to care about, as if it lived."

- Philip K. Dick.

50. "He could not make out, even now, how the Rosen Association had managed to snare him, and so easily."

- Philip K. Dick.

51. "I doubt if I'll ever own an owl."

- Philip K. Dick.

52. "He knew the reaction period down to a fraction of a second, the correct reaction period; there should have been none."

- Philip K. Dick.

53. "He sensed, behind the closed door, the presence of life, beyond that of the TV."

- Philip K. Dick.

54. "'I'll be all right,' he said, and thought, And I'm going to die. Both those are true, too."

- Philip K. Dick.

55. "But if I'm Mercer, he thought, I can never die, not in ten thousand years. Mercer is immortal."

- Philip K. Dick.

56. "Everything is true... Everything anybody has ever thought."

- Philip K. Dick.

57. "The Nexus-6. He had now come up against it. Rachael, he realized; she must be a Nexus-6."

- Philip K. Dick.

58.  "I had a real sheep, originally. My wife's father gave it to us outright when he emigrated."

- Philip K. Dick.

59. "He could not get out until the bones strewn around him grew back into living creatures."

- Philip K. Dick.

60. "The silence of the world could not rein back its greed. Not any longer. Not when it had virtually won."

- Philip K. Dick.

Here are some Philip K. Dick quotes from his alternate reality book.

61. "The voice faded and became garbled. A long pause, nothing at all. Just silence."

- Philip K. Dick.

62. "A weird time in which we are alive."

- Philip K. Dick.

63. "We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy."

- Philip K. Dick.

64. "Death at each moment, one avenue which is open to us at any point. And eventually we choose it, in spite of ourselves."

- Philip K. Dick.

65. "You're so fatalistic, Juliana thought. Resigned to your own destruction. Do you know that, too, the way you knew the world in your book?"

- Philip K. Dick.

66. "'How strange,' Juliana said. 'I never would have thought the truth would make you angry.'"

- Philip K. Dick.

67. "Death had spread out everywhere equally, over the living, the hurt, the corpses layer after layer that already had begun to smell."

- Philip K. Dick.

68. "Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find."

- Philip K. Dick.

69. "We can only control the end by making a choice at each step."

- Philip K. Dick.

70. "We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope."

- Philip K. Dick.

Here are some awesome quotes from Philip K. Dick from one of his lesser-known novels.

71. "Evidently. A good word, and a big one, like any word pertaining to death."

- Philip K. Dick.

72. "There is no way in this; all is muddled. All chaos of light and dark, shadow and substance."

- Philip K. Dick.

73. "And death came as swiftly and soundlessly as it had for Matson."

- Philip K. Dick.

74. "And a darkness into which people of all sorts--she glimpsed, felt, them dimly--ran along side in company with her; she was not alone: the future radiated."

- Philip K. Dick.

75. "He walked to the rear of the ship, leisurely, because at this distance from the sun everything seemed entropic, slowed down..."

- Philip K. Dick.

76. "... it did not believe him or care if what he said was true; its job was to hound him, not to seek the truth."

- Philip K. Dick.

77. "...the cool, small hand, capable of such restorative powers, such love-inspired healing, was by a frightening irony almost unbelievably fragile."

- Philip K. Dick.

78. "We're not making any money, Frink said to himself. We're making more and more jewelry and it's just piling up around us."

- Philip K. Dick.

79. "I feel the hot winds of karma driving me. Nevertheless, I remain here."

- Philip K. Dick.

80. "He ended the thought abruptly. He did not know. But eventually he would know. In the little matter of eighteen years."

- Philip K. Dick.

Take a look at these quotes from one of Philip K. Dick's earlier books.

81. "As you’ve probably noticed, it’s my desire to bring in a more refined musical form."

- Philip K. Dick.

82. "'I love San Francisco,' Mary Anne said with ardor. 'All those tiny bars and restaurants.'"

- Philip K. Dick.

83. "You really love that music. I’ve watched you ... you’re not pretending."

- Philip K. Dick.

84. "This time he couldn’t tell her the truth, because he couldn’t expect her to understand. The situation had to be experienced."

- Philip K. Dick.

85. "I’m no tiny-man, and I’m telling you the truth. He’s stupid; he’s snobbish; he’s a fake."

- Philip K. Dick.

86. "Perhaps, at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed."

- Philip K. Dick.

87. "In these times of shifting moral values there’s got to be something stable we can count on."

- Philip K. Dick.

88. "Someday, in a hundred years, her world might exist. It did not exist now."

- Philip K. Dick.

89. "Your work is excellent - you’re bright and you’re quick to learn. But you must face reality."

- Philip K. Dick.

90. "There it was again, the reality under the surface."

- Philip K. Dick.

Scroll down for some of the best Philip K. Dick quotes to read.

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

- Philip K. Dick.

92. "Reality denied comes back to haunt."

- Philip K. Dick.

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

- Philip K. Dick.

94. "The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words."

- Philip K. Dick.

95. "Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy... fear makes you always, always hold something back."

- Philip K. Dick.

96. "Each of us assumes everyone else knows what he is doing. They all assume we know what we are doing. We don't."

- Philip K. Dick.

97. "Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night."

- Philip K. Dick.

98. "So books are real to me, too; they link me not just with other minds but with the vision of other minds, what those minds understand and see."

- Philip K. Dick.

99. "Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything."

- Philip K. Dick.

100. "If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."

- Philip K. Dick.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Philip K. Dick quotes then why not take a look at J.R.R. Tolkien quotes, or Sarah J. Maas quotes.