English novelist (1930-2009)
As I left the motorway behind me, the prospect of actually turning the key in my father's front door began to loom in the windscreen like a faintly threatening head-up display. A large part of him would still be there--the scent of his body on the towels and clothes, the contents of his laundry basket, the odd smell of old bestsellers on his bookshelves. But his presence would be matched by my absence, the gaps that would be everywhere like emlpty cells in a honeycomb, human voids that his own son had never been able to fill when he abandoned his family for a universe of skies.
J. G. BALLARD
Kingdom Come
The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society.
J.G. BALLARD
Drive, Autumn 1971
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
Crash
After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.
J. G. BALLARD
Crash
Religions emerged too early in human evolution — they set up symbols that people took literally, and they're as dead as a line of totem poles. Religions should have come later, when the human race begins to near its end.
J. G. BALLARD
Cocaine Nights
In the theatre the playwright is at least the equal partner of the performers, but in film the writer is shouldered aside by director, actor, producer and editor, who together transform the printed word into something far more glamorous and evocative.
J. G. BALLARD
A User's Guide to the Millennium
The house was silent, but somewhere in the garden was a swimming pool filled with unsettled water.
J. G. BALLARD
Super-Cannes
These days even reality has to look artificial.
J. G. BALLARD
Kingdom Come
Horns sounded from the trapped vehicles on the motorway, a despairing chorus.
J. G. BALLARD
Crash
Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash. During our friendship he had rehearsed his death in many crashes, but this was his only true accident. Driven on a collision course towards the limousine of the film actress, his car jumped the rails of the London Airport flyover and plunged through the roof of a bus filled with airline passengers. The crushed bodies of package tourists, like a hemorrhage of the sun, still lay across the vinyl seats when I pushed my way through the police engineers an hour later. Holding the arm of her chauffeur, the film actress Elizabeth Taylor, with whom Vaughan had dreamed of dying for so many months, stood alone under the revolving ambulance lights. As I knelt over Vaughan's body she placed a gloved hand to her throat.
J. G. BALLARD
Crash
The white façades of the villas and apartment houses were like blocks of time that had crystallized beside the road.
J. G. BALLARD
Cocaine Nights
The three women were up to their thighs in the surging waves. The foam seethed around them, as if the sea was releasing its spawn in a vain attempt to impregnate them.
J. G. BALLARD
Rushing to Paradise
As Neil approached the camp the women's laughter still sounded from their tents. The noise had sent the peccaries stamping around their wire pen and set off a sympathetic screeching of cockatoos and lorikeets. All the creatures on Saint-Esprit, even those destined for the dining table, were celebrating the new addition to the sanctuary family.
J. G. BALLARD
Rushing to Paradise
Kill a politician and you're tied to the motive that made you pull the trigger.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People
Either the world is at fault, or we’re looking for meaning in the wrong places.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People
Gazing out at the placid sea of bricky gables, at the pleasant parks and school playgrounds, I felt a pang of resentment, the same pain I remembered when my wife kissed me fondly, waved a little shyly from the door of our Chelsea apartment, and walked out on me for good. Affection could reveal itself in the most heartless moments.
J. G. BALLARD
Kingdom Come
Jane had spent too many hours in elevators and pathology rooms, and the pallor of strip lighting haunted her like a twelve-year-old's memories of a bad dream.
J. G. BALLARD
Super-Cannes
Black is a very sentimental colour. You can hide any rubbish behind it.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People
But a disguise could go too far. Catching sight of myself in the broken windows of the gatehouse, I loosened the knot of my tie. I was still unsure what role I was playing.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People
Remember, the police are neutral -- they hate everybody.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People