J.G. Ballard

The marriage of reason and nightmare that dominated the 20th century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world. Across the communications landscape move the spectres of sinister technologies and the dreams that money can buy. Thermo-nuclear weapons systems and soft-drink commercials coexist in an overlit realm ruled by advertising and pseudo-events, science and pornography. Over our lives preside the great twin leitmotifs of the 20th century _ sex and paranoia_In a sense, pornography is the most political form of fiction, dealing with how we use and exploit each other, in the most urgent and ruthless way.

Jim knew that he was awake and asleep at the same time, dreaming of the war and yet dreamed of by the war.

However, for all his affection and loyalty towards the animal, the dog would soon be leaving him - they would both be present at a celebratory dinner when they reached the roof, he reflected with a touch of gallows-humour, but the poodle would be in the pot.

If we really feared the crash, most of us would be unable to look at a car, let lone drive one.

He methodically basted the dark skin of the Alsatian, which he had stuffed with garlic and herbs."One rule in life", he murmured to himself. "If you can smell garlic, everything is all right".

No one could have imagined the effects the Internet would have: _there__ a vast new intimacy and accidental poetry, not to mention the weirdest porn. The entire human experience seems to unveil itself like the surface of a new planet." JG Ballard, 2004

Recently she had become intrigued by the admiring glances of other women. The admiration of her own sex existed on a higher and more intense plane than anything men could offer, like the romantic rivalries of sisters. Together, women formed a conspiracy of glances entirely exchanged behind the backs of their menfolk.

He walked into the bathroom, wincing at himself in the mirror, that always more tired older brother.

So, with all this time on my hands, I decided to start a revolution.

Elaborate burial customs are a sure sign of decadence.

Togetherness is beating up an empty elevator.

In the future, violence would clearly become a valuable form of social cement.

...the arts and criminality have always flourished side by side.

The trouble with you people is that you've been here for thirty million years and your perspectives are all wrong. You miss so much of the transitory beauty of life.

I'm a strong opponent of all religious belief....And supposedly 95% of Americans say they believe in God - that's worrying....Religions are Trojan horses which conceal profoundly strange psychopathy strains. There's no other explanation for them. The sheer fear of death has been the main engine of religions for a very long time.

She glanced at her watch, reminding herself who she was.

The house was silent, but somewhere in the garden was a swimming pool filled with unsettled water.

Jim watched them eat, his eyes fixed on every morsel that entered their mouth. When the oldest of the four soldiers had finished he scraped some burnt rice and fish scales from the side of the cooking pot. A first-class private of some forty years, with slow, careful hands, he beckoned Jim forward and handed him his mess tin. As they smoked their cigarettes the Japanese smiled to themselves, watching Jim devour the shreds of fatty rice. It was his first hot food since he had left he hospital, and the heat and greasy flavour stung his gums. Tears swam in his eyes. The Japanese soldier who had taken pity on Jim, recognising that this small boy was starving, began to laugh good-naturedly, and pulled the rubber plug from his metal water-bottle. Jim drank the clear, chlorine-flavoured liquid, so unlike the stagnant water in the taps of the Columbia Road. He choked, carefully swallowed his vomit, and tittered into his hands, grinning at the Japanese. Soon they were all laughing together, sitting back in the deep grass beside the drained swimming-pool.