J. G. Ballard Quotes

We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men, but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system. Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.

Over the past few years, many of us have increasingly begun to question the direction and meaning of our society as it has developed over the past several centuries.

We live in an anaesthetized society.

There is a central flaw in contemporary culture and a corresponding and related inability to address it. Society seems somehow unable to adequately help or protect itself. Normal citizens feel powerless, isolated and disturbed.

It would be really wonderful if people connected to the loneliness of what it means to be a human being in the world today.

The only reality is our society, and I mean this seriously, Western Society is a very sick society.

Mainstream cinema raises questions only to immediately provide an answer to them, so they can send the spectator home reassured. If we actually had those answers, then society would appear very different from what it is.

The effort we make in trying to get white people to let us alone or invest in us is looking pretty futile…. I am a reluctant separatist

We have one Black man as President; we have one million Black men in prison.

Whereas the Bedouin who survey 100 miles of empty sand and crave company and can psychologically afford to offer each stranger a warm welcome, his urban contemporaries, at heart no less well-meaning or generous, must in order to preserve a modicum of balance, live without any acknowledgement of the millions of human beings sleeping arguing. Copulating, and dying only inches away. Modern society does not help us to put forward our more dignified side.

I like movies that project a dilemma of modern men and women who are overwhelmed by the system.

There's injustices within our system that we inherited from this time, from slavery, and until we confront our past, we're not going to be able to heal the wounds for our future.

I could write a whole other book called 'I'm Judging You, America!' I still might.

The white male is one of the easiest things to be. There's always a job; there's always something for you to do.

I have this morbid fascination with being completely alienated from everybody, and a lot of the time I really do feel that way.

You have to know the forces that are against you and that are trying to break you down. We talk about the problems facing the black community: the decimation of the black family; the mass incarceration of the black man; we're talking about the brutality against black people from the police. The educational system.

My films are a personal reflection on the impact that the state - the system and the world - has on me.

Policing was developed, created, and implemented for the elite, and - in the case of the United States - the elites were and almost entirely remain white, upper middle class, cisgender straight men.

Being in a first-world country, it's like we have a first-row seat to witnessing humanity, but we're not really witnessing anything. Despite all the new technological tools we've been given, we're still powerless, watching everything happen like it's a theatrical performance.

People who feel alienated have little trust in the institutions of our society. This adds to the wider sense of disaffection and makes it more difficult for our politics to work.

If your loved ones are far away, and they're uploading pictures, you feel like that's enough: these loose strands through email, through social media, are going to supply this connection you have with that person. And I think that's keeping us isolated and lonely in a way that's very dangerous because we're unaware of it.

One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name.

My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn’t belong there, among people who give without thinking and care without trying.

Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed—and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing.

All my life I've been lonely. I've been lonely at crowded parties. I've been lonely in the middle of kissing a girl and I've been lonely at camp with hundreds of fellows around. But now I'm not lonely any more.