Philip K. Dick on Reality

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

Philip K. Dick, How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, 1978

The first time I saw this quote, I thought it was likely fake. In other settings and times, Dick was no fan of reality. In 1980, for example, he wrote,

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 science fiction is all about.

Fighting for Freedom

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

–Unknown

This quote is widely attributed to H.L. Mencken, but since it is never given an appropriate citation, I am skeptical that it is actually from Mencken.