J. G. Ballard Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• It was an excess of fantasy that killed the old United States, the whole Mickey Mouse and Marilyn thing, the most brilliant technologies devoted to trivia like instant cameras and space spectaculars that should have stayed in the pages of Science Fiction . . . some of the last Presidents of the U.S.A. seemed to have been recruited straight from Disneyland.

  J. G. Ballard

  Technology, Space, Should Have

  17 Copy quote

• Deep assignments run through all our lives; there are no coincidences.

  J. G. Ballard

  Running, Coincidence, Assignments

  "Saved by the pram in the hall" by Justine Jordan, www.theguardian.com. February 15, 2008.

  6 Copy quote

• The marriage of reason and nightmare which has dominated the 20th century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world. Across the communications landscape move the specters of sinister technologies and the dreams that money can buy. Thermonuclear weapons systems and soft drink commercials coexist in an overlit realm ruled by advertising and pseudoevents, science and pornography. Over our lives preside the great twin leitmotifs of the 20th century-sex and paranoia.

  J. G. Ballard

  Dream, Sex, Moving

  17 Copy quote

• Even one's own home is a kind of anthology of advertisers, manufacturers, motifs and presentation techniques. There's nothing 'natural' about one's home these days. The furnishings, the fabrics, the furniture, the appliances, the TV, and all the electronic equipment - we're living inside commercials.

  J. G. Ballard

  Home, Fabric, Tvs

  J. G. Ballard (2005). “Conversations”, Re/Search Publications

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Fear, Interesting, Soul

  October 30, 1982 Interview, Re/Search, No. 8/9, 1984.

  11 Copy quote

• Consumerism is so weird. Its a sort of conspiracy we collude in. Youd think shoppers spending their hard-earned cash would be highly critical. You know that the manufacturers are trying to have you on.

  J. G. Ballard

  Thinking, Trying, Would Be

  5 Copy quote

• I wanted to rub the human race in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror.

  J. G. Ballard

  Mirrors, Race, Looks

  "From Wales, A World Apart" by Jeff Miers, Buffalo News, January 07, 2005.

  10 Copy quote

• Put a higher value on yourself. Being hyper-realistic about everything is too simple a get-out.

  J. G. Ballard

  Simple, Realistic, Hyper

  12 Copy quote

• My brief stay at the hospital had already convinced me that the medical profession was an open door to anyone nursing a grudge against the human race.

  J. G. Ballard

  Nursing, Race, Doors

  "Crash". Book by J. G. Ballard, 1973.

  6 Copy quote

• Actually, the suburbs are far more sinister places than most city dwellers imagine. Their very blandness forces the imagination into new areas. I mean, one's got to get up in the morning thinking of a deviant act, merely to make certain of one's freedom. It needn't be much; kicking the dog will do.

  J. G. Ballard

  Dog, Morning, Mean

  "J. G. Ballard, The Art of Fiction No. 85". Interview with Thomas Frick, www.theparisreview.org. 1984.

  9 Copy quote

• A general rule: if enough people predict something, it won't happen.

  J. G. Ballard

  People, Enough, Happens

  5 Copy quote

• I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic.

  J. G. Ballard

  Inspirational, Political, Way

  "Age of unreason". Interview With Jeannette Baxter, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2004.

  14 Copy quote

• The chief role of the universities is to prolong adolescence into middle age, at which point early retirement ensures that we lack the means or the will to enforce significant change.

  J. G. Ballard

  Retirement, Mean, Significant Change

  "Age of unreason". Interview With Jeannette Baxter, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2004.

  13 Copy quote

• After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.

  J. G. Ballard

  Safety, Car, Relief

  "Crash". Book by J. G. Ballard, 1973.

  16 Copy quote

• The future is going to be boring. The suburbanisation of the planet will continue, and the suburbanisation of the soul will follow soon after.

  J. G. Ballard

  Soul, Boring, Planets

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

• Deserts possess a particular magic, since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time. Anything erected there, a city, a pyramid, a motel, stands outside time. It's no coincidence that religious leaders emerge from the desert. Modern shopping malls have much the same function. A future Rimbaud, Van Gogh or Adolf Hitler will emerge from their timeless wastes.

  J. G. Ballard

  Religious, Cities, Shopping

  10 Copy quote

• Burroughs called his greatest novel Naked Lunch, by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. He's a writer of enormous richness whose books are a kind of attempt to blow up this cozy conspiracy, to allow us to see what's on the end of the fork . . . the truth.

  J. G. Ballard

  Book, Blow, Lunch

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Weekend, Play, Eden

  J. G. Ballard (2010). “Super-Cannes: A Novel”, p.99, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

• Our lives today are not conducted in linear terms. They are much more quantified; a stream of random events is taking place.

  J. G. Ballard

  Today, Events, Linear

  "The New Science Fiction". "The BBC Third Programme" with George MacBeth, www.jgballard.ca. February 1, 1967.

  9 Copy quote

• Art is the principal way in which the human mind has tried to remake the world in a way that makes sense. The carefully edited, slow-motion, action replay of a rugby tackle, a car crash or a sex act has more significance than the original event. Thanks to virtual reality, we will soon be moving into a world where a heightened super-reality will consist entirely of action replays, and reality will therefore be all the more rich and meaningful.

  J. G. Ballard

  Meaningful, Art, Sex

  "JG Ballard: Theatre of Cruelty". Interview with Jean-Paul Coillard, www.jgballard.ca. 1998.

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  Soup, Kind, Fame

  J. G. Ballard (2009). “The Atrocity Exhibition”, p.25, HarperCollins UK

  4 Copy quote

• God was a clever idea ... The human race came up with a winner there.

  J. G. Ballard

  God, Clever, Race

  "The benign catastrophist". Interview with Susie Mackenzie, September 6, 2003.

  8 Copy quote

• If I don't write, I begin to feel unsettled and uneasy, as I gather people do who are not allowed to dream.

  J. G. Ballard

  Dream, Writing, People

  8 Copy quote

• Selfish men make the best lovers. They're prepared to invest in the women's pleasures so that they can collect an even bigger dividend for themselves.

  J. G. Ballard

  Funny, Best Love, Selfish

  "Cocaine Nights". Book by J. G. Ballard, 1996.

  11 Copy quote

• One of the things I took from my wartime experiences was that reality was a stage set... the comfortable day-to-day life, school, the home where one lives and all the rest of it... could be dismantled overnight.

  J. G. Ballard

  Home, School, Reality

  "Sex and wheels: Zadie Smith on JG Ballard's Crash" by Zadie Smith, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

Page 2 of 6

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin