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
believe reality hands
I define Inner Space as an imaginary realm in which on the one hand the outer world of reality, and on the other the inner world of the mind meet and merge. Now, in the landscapes of the surrealist painters, for example, one sees the regions of Inner Space; and increasingly I believe that we will encounter in film and literature scenes which are neither solely realistic nor fantastic. In a sense, it will be a movement in the interzone between both spheres.
home reality needs
A reality that is electronic... Once everybody's got a computer terminal in their home, to satisfy all their needs, all the domestic needs, there'll be a dismantling of the present broadcasting structure, which is far too limited and limiting.
rain reality thinking
People think that by living on some mountainside in a tent and being frozen to death by freezing rain, they're somehow discovering reality, but of course that's just another fiction dreamed up by a TV producer.
school home reality
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.
exercise reality imagination
I take for granted that for the imaginative writer, the exercise of the imagination is part of the basic process of coping with reality, just as actors need to act all the time to make up for some deficiency in their sense of themselves.
drama gun reality
The functional freedom that anybody can buy a gun and go out and murder a lot of people at a McDonald's is prevalent, yes. But through the effects of TV and interactive video systems and so forth, we'll also have the freedom to pretend to be a mass murderer for the evening. I've seen descriptions of advanced TV systems in which a simulation of reality is computer controlledthe TV viewer of the future will wear a special helmet. You'll no longer be an external spectator to fiction created by others, but an active participant in your own fantasies/dramas.
reality roles fiction
Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
reality migration stuff
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.
art real reality
Art exists because reality is neither real nor significant.
reality numbers forget
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.
reality sprung-up fiction
Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.
self regimes paranoid
The history of psychiatry rewrites itself so often that it almost resembles the self-serving chronicles of a totalitarian and slightly paranoid regime.
ambition careers medicine
Medicine was certainly intended to be a career. I wanted to become a psychiatrist, an adolescent ambition which, of course, is fulfilled by many psychiatrists.
powerful lying writing
It's true that I have very little idea what I shall be writing next, but at the same time I have a powerful premonition of everything that lies ahead of me, even ten years ahead.