Still Transmitting

Philip K. Dick wrote forty-four novels in cheap California apartments while behind on rent. He was classified as a pulp science fiction writer, and almost nobody took him seriously while he was alive.

He also kept an eight-thousand-page private journal - his Exegesis - trying to work out whether his mystical experiences were divine or delusional. He never decided.

On March 2, 1980, he wrote in that journal that he believed a higher intelligence was about to end this version of Philip K. Dick - that he'd gotten too close to something, and the simulation was about to be shut down.

On March 2, 1982, doctors disconnected his life support after a series of strokes. He was 53. Same date. Same idea. Same man.

Let him speak for himself. What follows is Philip K. Dick in his own words - nine sentences from nine sources, arranged as one message.

"My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality?'"

"The core of my writing is not art but truth."

"I often have the feeling that this is all just a stage."

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

"Reality denied comes back to haunt."

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

"I have never yielded to reality."

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

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