J G Ballard Quotes

James Graham Ballard (1930-2009)

J. G. Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist who first became associated with the New Wave of science fiction for his post-apocalyptic novels such as The Drowned World. (J G Ballard Quotes)

“A kind of banalization of celebrity has occurred: we are now offered an instant, ready-to-mix fame as nutritious as packet soup.”
J. G. Ballard

“After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.”
J. G. Ballard

“Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.”
J. G. Ballard

“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century. ”
J. G. Ballard

“Fiction is a branch of neurology: the scenarios of nerve and blood vessels are the written mythologies of memory and desire.”
J. G. Ballard

“I accepted that a new kind of hate had emerged, silent and disciplined, a racism tempered by loyalty cards and PIN numbers. Shopping was now the model for all human behaviour, drained of emotion and anger.”
J. G. Ballard

“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
J. G. Ballard

“I wanted to rub the human race in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror.”
J. G. Ballard

“I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that’s my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again… the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.”
J. G. Ballard

“If their work is satisfying people don’t need leisure in the old-fashioned sense. No one ever asks what Newton or Darwin did to relax, or how Bach spent his weekends. At Eden-Olympia work is the ultimate play, and play the ultimate work.”
J. G. Ballard

“In a sense life in the high-rise had begun to resemble the world outside – there were the same ruthlessness and agression concealed within a set of polite conventions.”
J. G. Ballard

“In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom.”
J. G. Ballard

“In the post-Warhol era a single gesture such as uncrossing one’s legs will have more significance than all the pages in War and Peace.”
J. G. Ballard

“Perhaps the future belongs to magic, and it’s we women who control magic.”
J. G. Ballard

“Put a higher value on yourself. Being hyper-realistic about everything is too simple a get-out.”
J. G. Ballard

“Science is the ultimate pornography, analytic activity whose main aim is to isolate objects or events from their contexts in time and space. This obsession with the specific activity of quantified functions is what science shares with pornography.”
J. G. Ballard

“The human race sleepwalked to oblivion, thinking only of the corporate logos on it’s shroud.”
J. G. Ballard

“The twentieth century ended with its dreams in ruins. The notion of the community as a voluntary association of enlightened citizens has died forever. We realize how suffocatingly humane we’ve become, dedicated to moderation and the middle way. The suburbanization of the soul has overrun our planet like the plague.”
J. G. Ballard

“They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed.”
J. G. Ballard