Week 2026-10: James G Ballard - Collected Quotes

"However selective the conscious mind may be, most biological memories are unpleasant ones, echoes of danger and terror. Nothing endures for so long as fear." (James G Ballard, "The Drowned World", 1962)

"Speculative fantasy, as I prefer to call the more serious fringe of science fiction, is an especially potent method of using one’s imagination to construct a paradoxical universe where dream and reality become fused together, each retaining its own distinctive quality and yet in some way assuming the role of its opposite, and where by an undeniable logic black simultaneously becomes white." (James G Ballard, "Time, Memory, and Inner Space’", 1963)

"It marked the beginning of the giant’s surrender to that all-demanding system of time in which the rest of humanity finds itself, and of which, like the million twisted ripples of a fragmented whirlpool, our finite lives are the concluding products." (James G Ballard, "The Drowned Giant", 1965)

"Our lives today are not conducted in linear terms. They are much more quantified; a stream of random events is taking place." (James G Ballard, [Conversation with George MacBeth on Third Programme - BBC], 1967)

"Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century." (James G Ballard, "Fictions of Every Kind", 1971)

"The role of the writer today has totally changed - he is now merely one of a huge army of people filling the environment with fictions of every kind. To survive, he must become far more analytic, approaching his subject matter like a scientist or engineer. If he is to produce fiction at all, he must outimagine everyone else, scream louder, whisper more quietly. For the first time in the history of narrative fiction, it will require more than talent to become a writer." (James G Ballard, "Fictions of Every Kind", 1971)

"Even the vagal flushes that seized at my chest seemed extensions of that real world of violence calmed and tamed within our television programmes and the pages of news magazines." (James G Ballard, "Crash", 1973)

"The catastrophe story, whoever may tell it, represents a constructive and positive act by the imagination rather than a negative one, an attempt to confront the terrifying void of a patently meaningless universe by challenging it at its own game. [. . .] Each one of these fantasies represents an arraignment of the finite, an attempt to dismantle the formal structure of time and space which the universe wraps around us at the moment we first achieve consciousness." (James G Ballard, "Cataclysms and Dooms" 1977)

"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." (James G Ballard, Re/Search 8–9, [interview with Andrea Juno and V. Vale], 1984)

Week 2026-09: On Contemplation (unsourced)

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

"Contemplation is to knowledge, what digestion is to food the way to get life out of it." (Tryon Edwards)

"Further, this power which conceives these ideas does at times gain from sense forms mental, imaginative, and innate in (instinctive to) itself; and in such a case it does this in that it lays before itself the forms that are in the conceiving power and in the remembering (preserving) power, by employing the imaginative and the conjecturing power, and then contemplates them, and finds them to have participated in some forms and to have differed in some other forms; and finds some amongst the forms that are in these powers to be essential and others to be accidental." (Avicenna Latinus [Ibn Sina])

"If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there. Where suffering lies is right where non-suffering will arise, it ceases at the place where it arises. If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don't have to run away. You should settle the issue right there. One who runs away from suffering out of fear is the most foolish person of all. He will simply increases his stupidity endlessly." (Ajahn Chah)

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.” (Rene Descartes)

"In order to meditate, it is very important to first identify what we are meditating on. If we meditate without identifying that, there is the danger it will become idiot meditation or idiot Dharma. If we do not first fully comprehend through listening and contemplating the meaning of what we are meditating on, how can we practice?" (Gyalwa Karmapa)

"In the Martial Arts, introspection begets wisdom. Always see contemplation on your actions as an opportunity to improve." (Mas Oyama) [motto]

"In the same way, if we are confronted with koan, we have to contemplate it in the same way. Such a time is not the time for zazen, but for koan only, and we have nothing to do with zazen as suggested by the saying that the virtuous woman does not serve two husbands, nor does the loyal retainer serve two lords. Thus, when we are supposed to act, all we have to do is to act. We have to act for all our lives. When our whole bodies act, there is no dualistic self in us. When there is no self, there is nothing which is in opposition to us. I do not doubt that the universe is one with the whole active self." (Toin)

"Prayer can assume very different forms, from quiet, blessed contemplation of God, in which eye meets eye in restful meditation, to deep sighs or sudden exclamations of wonder, joy, gratitude or adoration." (Ole Hallesby)

"The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief." (Adyashanti)

"There's no wisdom from a man without harmony, and without harmony there is no contemplation. Without contemplation there cannot be peace, and without peace there can be no joy..." (Bhagavad Gita)

"When a garden is used as a place to pause for thought, that is when a Zen garden comes to life. When you contemplate a garden like this it will form as lasting impression on your heart." (Muso Soseki)

"When you are engaged in some work or other, you become one with it. In the intervals of your work, you immediately resume your contemplation on the koan. For instance, when you are smoking by the fireside or doing something like that, you are considered to be in the intervals of your work. At such a time you are absorbed in the contemplation on the koan free from dualistic thoughts and imaginations. This is one example of kufu in movement." (Kawajiri Hogin, "Zazen no Shokei" [The Warning/Observation on Zazen])