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058478d
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Wake up to a hearty, lip-smacking bowlful of nutritious, nourishing Ubik toasted flakes, the adult cereal that's more crunchy, more tasty, more ummmish. Ubik breakfast cereal, the whole-bowl taste treat!
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Philip K. Dick |
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18fe9b1
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Office gossip annoyed him because it always proved better than the truth.
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Philip K. Dick |
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43ac554
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Then the true name for religion,' Fat said, 'is death.' 'The secret name,' I agreed. 'You got it. Jesus died; Asklepios died - they killed Mani worse than they killef jesus, but nobody even cares; nobody even remembers. They killed the Catharist in southern France by the tens of thousands. In the Thirty Years War, hundreds of people died. Protestants and Catholics - manual slaughter. Death is the real name for it; not God, not the Savior, n..
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world
humanity
spirituality
religion
god
life
science-fiction
irrationality
human-nature
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Philip K. Dick |
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4e91a1a
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What you should do," she told Fat during one of his darker hours, "is get into studying the characteristics of the T-34." Fat asked what that was. It turned out that Sherri had read a book on Russion armor during World War Two. The T-34 tank had been the Soviet Union's salvation and thereby the salvation of all the Allied Powers- and, by extension, Horselover Fat's, since without the T-34 he would be speaking - not english or Latin or the k..
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language
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Philip K. Dick |
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00f65e0
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Nothing could be more impolite. To say, "Is your sheep genuine?" would be a worse breach of manners."
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Philip K. Dick |
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de5283a
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What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring? What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull?
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philosophical
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Philip K. Dick |
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2f2c57f
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Instant Ubik has all the fresh flavor of just-brewed drip coffee. Your husband will say, Christ, Sally, I used to think your coffee was only so-so. But now, wow! Safe when taken as directed.
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Philip K. Dick |
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fc54335
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I should not yield to it, he told himself once again as he walked along carrying the briefcase. Compulsion-obsession-phobia. But he could not free himself. It in my grip, I in its, he thought.
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murder
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Philip K. Dick |
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8880d59
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She'll probably want to, once I show her how; as near as I can make out, most women, even young ones like her, like to cook: it's an instinct.
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Philip K. Dick |
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273535d
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There are people among us who are biologically human but who are androids in the metaphoric sense.
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personhood
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Philip K. Dick |
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07b9fdc
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You know that recent Supreme Court ruling where a husband can legally murder his wife if he can prove she wouldn't under any circumstances give him a divorce?
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Philip K. Dick |
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a81af13
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they won't help a hurt man up from the gutter due to the obligation it imposes.
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Philip K. Dick |
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783ce4d
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After he saw God he felt really good, for around a year. And then he felt really bad. Worse than he ever had before in his life. Because one day it came over him, he began to realize, that he was never going to see God again; he was going to live out his whole remaining life, decades, maybe fifty years, and see nothing but what he had always seen. What we see. He was worse off than if he hadn't seen God.
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Philip K. Dick |
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8f8ec03
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If you or I ever really accepted the moral responsibility for what we've done in our lifetime--we'd drop dead or go mad. Living creatures weren't made to understand what they do.
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Philip K. Dick |
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89f8878
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This is an interval, ein Augenblick. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And
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Philip K. Dick |
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fdda085
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I remember something the Buddha said after he witnessed a supposed saint walk on water: 'For a penny,' the Buddha said, 'I can board a ferry and do that.' It was more practical, even for the Buddha, to cross the water normally. The normal and the supranormal were not antagonistic realms, after all.
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Philip K. Dick |
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21bc5a8
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Near her he became aware of the physical mechanisms which kept him alive; within him machinery, pipes and valves and gas-compressors and fan belts had to chug away at a losing task, a labor ultimately doomed.
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Philip K. Dick |
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fb956ae
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But change's always harsh on the loser. Nothing new.
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Philip K. Dick |
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e2d19e6
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There's nothing worse than a perceptive universe if there's something weird about you.
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Philip K. Dick |
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457ee95
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Even if all life on our planet is destroyed, there must be other life somewhere which we know nothing of. It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not percieve.
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universe
world-war-2
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Philip K. Dick |
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38f61d1
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Who threw the stone at me? he asked himself. No one. But why does it bother me? I've undergone it before, during fusion. While using my empathy box, like everyone else. This isn't new. But it was. Because, he thought, I did it alone.
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Philip K. Dick |
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ef13dd2
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Parcifal is one of those corkscrew artifact of culture in which you get the subjective sense that you've learned something from it, something valuable or even priceless; but on closer inspection you suddenly begin to scratch your head and say "Wait a minute. This makes no sense."
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Philip K. Dick |
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f5bf448
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Don't you feel it?" he kidded her. "The historicity?"
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Philip K. Dick |
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8e50835
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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. The tyranny of an object, he thought. It doesn't know I exist.
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Philip K. Dick |
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7fca0b8
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As the spring rains fall, soaking in them, on the roof, is a child's rag ball.
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Philip K. Dick |
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cb2266a
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We were great builders, but one day we decided to play a game. We did it voluntarily; were we such good builders that we could build a maze with a way out but which constantly changed so that, despite the way out, in effect there was no way out for us...
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Philip K. Dick |
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6dc0fc0
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That is a logic which Freud attacks, by the way, the two-proposition self-cancelling structure. Freud considered this structure a revelation of rationalization. Someone is accused of stealing a horse, to which he replies, 'I don't steal horses and anyhow you have a crummy horse.' If you ponder the reasoning in this you can see the actual thought-process behind it. The second statement does not reinforce the first. It only looks like it does..
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Philip K. Dick |
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09e380e
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There's something in the Bible about falling sparrows,' Kevin said. 'About his eye being on them. That's what's wrong with God: he only has one eye.
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Philip K. Dick |
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3f675c0
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But, he thought, what does it mean, insane? A legal definition. What do I mean? I feel it, see it, but what is it? He thought, It is something they do, something they are. It is their unconsciousness. Their lack of knowledge about others. Their not being aware of what they do to others, the destruction they have caused and are causing. No, he thought. That isn't it. I don't know; I sense it, I intuit it. But -- they are purposelessly cruel...
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facism
nazis
insanity
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Philip K. Dick |
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2af040c
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Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Not of honorable men but of itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the ..
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abstraction
the-abyss
racism
nihilism
nazism
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Philip K. Dick |
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b850d34
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Empathy, evidently, existed only within the human community, whereas intelligence to some degree could be found throughout every phylum and order including the arachnida. For one thing, the empathic faculty probably required an unimpaired group instinct; a solitary organism, such as a spider, would have no use for it; in fact it would tend to abort a spider's ability to survive. It would make him conscious of the desire to live on the part ..
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human
predators
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Philip K. Dick |
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3a8ecc3
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A beam of pink light blinded him; he felt dreadful pain in his head, and clapped his hands to his eyes. I am blind! he realized. With the pain and the pink light came understanding, an acute knowledge; he knew that Zina was not a human woman, and he knew, further, that the boy Manny was not a human boy. This was not a real world he was in; he understood that because the beam of pink light had told him that. This world is a simulation, and s..
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Philip K. Dick |
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a5a8cf6
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And yet he felt repelled by the teaching machines. For the entire Public School was geared to a task which went contrary to his grain: the school was there not to inform or educate, but to mold, and along severely limited lines. It was the link to their inherited culture, and it peddled that culture, in its entirety, to the young. It bent its pupils to it; perpetuation of the culture was the goal, and any special quirks in the children whic..
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Philip K. Dick |
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8f68d27
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It was a battle, Jack realized, between the composite psyche of the school and the individual psyches of the children, and the former held all the key cards. A child who did not properly respond was assumed to be autistic-that is, oriented according to a subjective factor that took precedence over his sense of objective reality. And that child wound up by being expelled from the school; he went, after that, to another sort of school entirel..
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Philip K. Dick |
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abf2b2a
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She was a redhead and he liked redheads; they were either outrageously ugly or almost supernaturally attractive.
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Philip K. Dick |
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577c02d
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Bob, you know something . . ." Luckman said at last. "I used to be the same age as everyone else." "I think so was I," Arctor said. "I don't know what did it." "Sure, Luckman," Arctor said, "you know what did it to all of us." "Well, let's not talk about it." He continued inhaling noisily, his long face sallow in the dim midday light."
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Philip K. Dick |
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0bbe20d
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It horrified him, this thought: the ancient gigantic cannibal near-man flourishing now, ruling the world once more. We spent a million years escaping him, Frink thought, and now he's back. And not merely as the adversary . . . but as the master.
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Philip K. Dick |
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2ec1687
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Amazing, the power of fiction, even cheap popular fiction, to evoke.
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Philip K. Dick |
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471b238
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The rule of survival, he thought. Keep eye peeled regarding situation around you. Learn its demands. And- meet them. Be there at the right time doing the right thing.
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Philip K. Dick |
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cd64b29
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It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive.
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Philip K. Dick |
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33dc9a4
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Eric, I'm going to pay you back for leaving me." She smoothed her dress. "You understand?" "Yes," he said, and walked into the kitchen. "I'll devote my life to it," Kathy said, from the bedroom. "Now I have a reason for living. It's wonderful to have a purpose at last; it's thrilling. After all these pointless ugly years with you. God, it's like being born all over again." "Lots of luck," he said."
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Philip K. Dick |
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f7367df
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Oh no," she said, still smiling; her eyes poured over with light, that of compassion. She understood how he felt, that this was not an impulse only. But the answer was still no, and, he knew, it would always"
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Philip K. Dick |
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b03750a
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Stuart said, "I hid once in the sidewalk. Do I have to do that again?" He looked around at the rest of them, seeking an answer. "Yes," Bonny said. "Then I will," he said. "But I came up out of the sidewalk; I didn't stay there. And I'll come up again."
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Philip K. Dick |
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812cb2f
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It is as if one hemisphere of your brain is perceiving the world as reflected in a mirror. Through a mirror. See? So left becomes right, and all that that implies. And we don't know yet what that does imply, to see the world reversed like that. Topologically speaking, a left-hand glove is a right-hand glove pulled through infinity.
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Philip K. Dick |