The Minority Report

by

Philip K. Dick

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Section 1 Quotes

“You’ve probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback to precrime methodology. We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law.”

Related Characters: John Anderton (speaker), Witwer
Page Number: 224
Explanation and Analysis:
Section 2 Quotes

“I’m being framed—deliberately and maliciously. This creature is out to get my job. The Senate is getting at me through him.”

Related Characters: John Anderton (speaker), Witwer, Lisa
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:
Section 5 Quotes

“…unanimity of all three precogs is a hoped-for but seldom-achieved phenomenon, acting-Commissioner Witwer explains. It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance, since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future.”

Related Characters: John Anderton, Witwer
Related Symbols: Precogs
Page Number: 240
Explanation and Analysis:
Section 7 Quotes

“Perhaps a lot of the people in the camps are like you.”

“No,” Anderton insisted. But he was beginning to feel uneasy about it, too. “I was in a position to see the card, to get a look at the report. That’s what did it.”

“But—” Lisa gestured significantly. “Perhaps all of them would have reacted that way. We could have told them the truth.”

“It would have been too great a risk,” he answered stubbornly.

Related Characters: John Anderton (speaker), Lisa (speaker)
Related Symbols: Precogs
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’ve convinced me that you’re innocent. I mean, it’s obvious that you won’t commit a murder. But you must realize now that the original report, the majority report, was not a fake. Nobody falsified it. Ed Witwer didn’t create it. There’s no plot against you, and there never was. If you’re going to accept this minority report as genuine you’ll have to accept the majority one, also.”

Related Characters: Lisa (speaker), John Anderton, Witwer
Related Symbols: Precogs
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis:
Section 9 Quotes

“But there can be no valid knowledge about the future. As soon as precognitive information is obtained, it cancels itself out. The assertion that this man will commit a future crime is paradoxical. The very act of possessing this data renders it spurious. In every case, without exception, the report of the three police precogs has invalidated their own data. If no arrests had been made, there would still have been no crimes committed.”

Related Characters: Kaplan (speaker), John Anderton
Related Symbols: Precogs
Page Number: 257
Explanation and Analysis:
Section 10 Quotes

Each report was different,” Anderton concluded. “Each was unique. But two of them agreed on one point. If left free, I would kill Kaplan. That created the illusion of a majority report. Actually, that’s all it was—an illusion. ‘Donna’ and ‘Mike’ previewed the same event—but in two totally different time-paths, occurring under totally different situations.”

Related Characters: John Anderton (speaker), Kaplan, Witwer
Related Symbols: Precogs
Page Number: 259-260
Explanation and Analysis:
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