J. G. Ballard Quotes - Page 2

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• In the past we have always assumed that the external world around us has represented reality, however confusing or uncertain, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes, ambitions, represented the realm of fantasy, and the imagination. These roles, it seems to me, have been reversed. The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction - conversely, the one small node of reality left to us is inside of our own heads.

  J. G. Ballard

  Dream, Ambition, Past

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• 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.

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

  J. G. Ballard

  Simple, Realistic, Hyper

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time.

  J. G. Ballard

  Reality, Migration, Stuff

  Heavy Metal Interview, April 1982.

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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

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• Sleep is an eight-hour peep show of infantile erotica.

  J. G. Ballard

  Sleep, Eight, Hours

  J. G. Ballard (2014). “The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard”, p.23, Holt Paperbacks

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• Films, like memories, seem to re-shoot themselves over the years, reflecting our latest needs and obsessions. In many cases they can change completely, and reveal unexpected depths and shallows. Will Four Weddings and a Funeral be seen one day as a vicious social satire? Could Jaws become as tearful and sentimental as Bambi?

  J. G. Ballard

  Memories, Years, Funeral

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

  J. G. Ballard

  People, Enough, Happens

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• The ultimate concept car will move so fast, even at rest, as to be invisible.

  J. G. Ballard

  Moving, Car, Invisible

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• 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

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