J. G. Ballard

"I began to become an adult when I was 24 and got married and had children. That matures you, but I wouldn't say I was fully an adult until I was in my forties. The trouble with the whole adult debate …"

"The residents had eliminated both past and future, and for all their activity, they existed in a civilized and eventless world."

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

"Our governments are preparing for a future without work, and that includes the petty criminals. Leisure societies lie ahead of us... People will still work — or, rather, some people will work, but onl…"

"Along with our passivity, we're entering a profoundly masochistic phase — everyone is a victim these days, of parents, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, even love itself. And how much we enjoy it. Ou…"

"Even the run-down nature of the high-rise was a model of the world into which the future was carrying them, a landscape beyond technology where everything was either derelict or, more ambiguously, rec…"

"After the commonplaces of everyday life, with their muffled dramas, all my organic expertise for dealing with physical injury had long been blunted or forgotten. The crash was the only real experience…"

"The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates — the inhabitants of the marketing zones in the consumer society, television audiences and news magazine readerships…"