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.

I mean, knowing people, people are terrified of the unknown and they want to just kill the unknown.

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

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

I never liked the idea of doing what a machine says. I hate having to salute something built in a factory.

So books are real to me, too; they link me not just with other minds but with the vision of other minds, what those minds understand and see. I see their worlds as well as I see my own.

To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement.... Whoever defeats the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus.