"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"
About this Quote
Philip K. Dick’s line is a trapdoor disguised as common sense. It sounds like a breezy realist slogan until you remember who’s talking: a novelist obsessed with counterfeit worlds, corporate hallucinations, and the fragile pact we call “normal.” The wit is in the pressure it puts on belief. Most people treat reality as a shared story that holds because we keep agreeing to it. Dick concedes the power of that agreement, then yanks the cord: even if consensus collapses, something stubborn remains.
The intent is corrective, almost combative. In Dick’s universe, “belief” isn’t just religion or ideology; it’s perception itself, the mental software that can be edited by drugs, advertising, paranoia, or the state. His point isn’t that feelings don’t matter, but that the world has consequences that outlive your narrative. You can stop believing in gravity, debt, or a diagnosis; the bill still arrives.
Subtextually, he’s also poking at mid-century American confidence in media-made reality. The postwar era sold a glossy, televised normality; Dick wrote from its underside, where the home is a set, the job is a script, and the self is precarious. That makes the line feel less like a philosophy lecture and more like a hard-earned coping mechanism: a way to keep your footing when everything else is up for manipulation.
Context matters: Dick lived with intense distrust of perception, fed by personal instability and a cultural climate of Cold War secrecy and psychedelic experimentation. The quote works because it offers a single, brutal criterion for truth: what resists your denial. In a time when “my truth” can masquerade as truth, Dick’s definition is both bleak and clarifying.
The intent is corrective, almost combative. In Dick’s universe, “belief” isn’t just religion or ideology; it’s perception itself, the mental software that can be edited by drugs, advertising, paranoia, or the state. His point isn’t that feelings don’t matter, but that the world has consequences that outlive your narrative. You can stop believing in gravity, debt, or a diagnosis; the bill still arrives.
Subtextually, he’s also poking at mid-century American confidence in media-made reality. The postwar era sold a glossy, televised normality; Dick wrote from its underside, where the home is a set, the job is a script, and the self is precarious. That makes the line feel less like a philosophy lecture and more like a hard-earned coping mechanism: a way to keep your footing when everything else is up for manipulation.
Context matters: Dick lived with intense distrust of perception, fed by personal instability and a cultural climate of Cold War secrecy and psychedelic experimentation. The quote works because it offers a single, brutal criterion for truth: what resists your denial. In a time when “my truth” can masquerade as truth, Dick’s definition is both bleak and clarifying.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
|---|
More Quotes by Philip
Add to List
