# Quote — Philip K. Dick, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

> “Isn’t there any way—” He broke off. Can’t the past be altered? he asked himself. Evidently not. Cause and effect work in only one direction, and change is real. So what’s gone is gone, and I might as well get out of here.

- Author: [Philip K. Dick](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick.md)
- Book: [The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch.md)
- Page: 173
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick#The_Three_Stigmata_of_Palmer_Eldritch_(1965)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch/isnt-there-any

## More from this book

> The time, then, had come for him to poison himself so that an economic monopoly could be kept alive, a sprawling, interplan empire from which he now derived nothing.

p. 161 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch/the-time-then.md)

> So that’s that, Barney said to himself. I violated Rule One of career-oriented functioning: never tell your superior something he doesn’t want to hear.

p. 60 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch/so-thats-that.md)

> It takes a certain amount of courage, he thought, to face yourself and say with candor, I’m rotten. I’ve done evil and I will again. It was no accident; it emanated from the true, authentic me.

p. 112 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-k-dick/the-three-stigmata-of-palmer-eldritch/it-takes-a-certain.md)