Science Fiction quotes #3

Phillip K Dick

(Hollywood films include Blade Runner(1982), Total Recall(1990) and Minority 

Report(2002), A Scanner Darkly (2006))

This is the final part three of my quotes that I hope to inspire you into finding 
science marvellous. Herbert was a philosophical wrangler, Asimov was 
fascinated by technology – Dick has far more interest in human to human 
machinations and how future advances will bring out the worse in mankind. 
He’s brilliantly dark. 



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

'My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.'

'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 them.'

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

'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.'

'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'.'

'The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things 
that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek 
philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose 
their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real.'

'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.'

'A man is an angel that has gone deranged.'

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 SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read 
Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling 
writers….This is why I love SF. I love to read it; I love to write it. The SF writer 
sees not just possibilities but wild possibilities. It's not just 'What if' - it's 'My 
God; what if' - in frenzy and hysteria. The Martians are always coming.

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