But an artist, he realized. Or rather so-called artist. Bohemian. That's closer to it. The artistic life without the talent.

I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, then do as I tell them. I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be.

For each person there is a sentence—a series of words—which has the power to destroy them.

We should take mothers in high seas and drown them there, they are as poisonous as lead in the air.

The hell with the newspapers. Nobody reads the letters to the editor column except the nuts. It's enough to get you down.

I think that, like in my writing, reality is always a soap bubble, Silly Putty thing anyway. In the universe people are in, people put their hands through the walls, and it turns out they're living in another century entirely. I often have the feeling — and it does show up in my books — that this is all just a stage.

Every junkie, he thought, is a recording.