J. G. Ballard
J. G. Ballard
James Graham "J. G." Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalypticnovels such as The Wind from Nowhereand The Drowned World. In the late 1960s, Ballard produced a variety of experimental short stories, such as those collected in The Atrocity Exhibition, which drew comparisons with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In the mid 1970s, he...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth18 November 1930
Everywhere--all over Africa and South America . . . you see these suburbs springing up. They represent the optimum of what people want. There's a certain sort of logic leading towards these immaculate suburbs. And they're terrifying, because they are the death of the soul. . . . This is the prison this planet is being turned into.
Art exists because reality is neither real nor significant.
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 dissapointed.
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.
If I don't write, I begin to feel unsettled and uneasy, as I gather people do who are not allowed to dream.
Fiction is a branch of neurology
All you do is get on and start pedaling . . .
I admired anyone who could unsettle people.
Sooner or later, everything turns into television.
Along with our passivity, we're entering a profoundly masochistic phase everyone is a victim these days, of parents, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, even love itself. And how much we enjoy it. Our happiest moments are spent trying to think up new varieties of victimhood...
Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom.
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind -- mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery . . .
Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.