J. G. Ballard Quotes

Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.

People don't want other people to get high, because if you get high, you might see the falsity of the fabric of the society we live in.

After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.

There comes a moment... When imagination gives out and Reality leaps forth. It is frightful!

It took the real thing to show you the size of your delusions.

Everyone needs reality to punch them in the face every once in a while. Keeps you on guard.

It's only before realities set in that we can treasure our delusions.

The commonsense rules of the "real world" are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.

Recognize reality even when you don't like it-especially when you don't like it.

"Comfort" is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being "comfortable".

Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality.

You must not look in that mirror at your doughy legs and flat feet, for today is about dreams and illusions, and unfiltered natural daylight is the enemy of dreams.

I have something to tell you non-smokers that I know for a fact that you don't know, and I feel it's my duty to pass on information at all times. Ready?. . . . Non-smokers die every day . . . Enjoy your evening. See, I know that you entertain this eternal life fantasy because you've chosen not to smoke, but let me be the 1st to POP that bubble and bring you hurling back to reality . . . You're dead too.

Everything that happens is at least one dimension smaller than you've imagined it to be.

Ask yourself: What did I eat for breakfast today? What did I eat for dinner last night? You see how fast reality fades away?

I don;t think there's anything wrong with being a dreamer. There is not. But dreams have ways of turning into nightmares.

If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves. The recognition of illusion is also its ending. Its survival depends on your mistaking it for reality.

When you're dreaming, you don't know it's a dream. You might even interpret a dream in your dream - and then wake up and realize it was all a dream. Perhaps a great awakening will reveal this to be a dream as well.

It doesn't have to be like that but mostly it is.

The reason to drive this point home with a vivid and frank comparison is many New Yorkers are still not confronting the reality of how serious our crisis is. It was an exhortation to face reality.

Repeat, over and over again, in case anyone forgets it or believes the contrary, that we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.

Truth is not always a pleasant thing.

I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.

Here's Henry, trying to burst the bubble still further, if indeed it needs more bursting