# Quote — Ted Chiang, Exhalation

> My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

- Author: [Ted Chiang](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang.md)
- Book: [Exhalation](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation.md)
- Page: 60
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Exhalation:_Stories_(2019)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation/my-message-to-you

## More from this book

> Humans have lived alongside parrots for thousands of years, and only recently have they considered the possibility that we might be intelligent.
>
> I suppose I can’t blame them. We parrots used to think humans weren’t very bright. It’s hard to make sense of behavior that’s so different from your own.

p. 233 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation/humans-have-lived.md)

> Let me always be inquisitive, but never be suspicious.

p. 249 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation/let-me-always.md)

> When the public interest is involved, finding out what actually happened is important; justice is an essential part of the social contract, and you can’t have justice until you know the truth.

p. 190 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation/when-the-public.md)