“Jim knew that he was awake and asleep at the same time, dreaming of the war and yet dreamed of by the war.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“All around them were the bodies of dead Chinese soldiers. They lined the verges of the roads and floated in the canals, jammed together around the pillars of the bridges. In the trenches between the burial mounds hundreds of dead soldiers sat side by side with their heads against the torn earth, as if they had fallen asleep together in a deep dream of war.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“After a few minutes Jim was forced to admit that he could recognize none of the constellations. Like everything else since the war, the sky was in a state of change. For all their movements, the Japanese aircraft were its only fixed points, a second zodiac above the broken land.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“To his surprise he felt a moment of regret, of sadness that his quest for his mother and father would soon be over. As long as he searched for them he was prepared to be hungry and ill, but now that the search had ended he felt saddened by the memory of all he had been through, and of how much he had changed. He was closer now to the ruined battlefields and this fly-infested truck, to the nine sweet potatoes in the sack below the driver's seat, even in a sense to the detention center, than he would ever be again to his house in Amherst Avenue.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“Dr. Ransome marked the exercises in the algebra textbook and gave him two strips of rice-paper bandage on which to solve the simultaneous equations. As he stood up, Dr. Ransome removed the three tomatoes from Jim's pocket. He laid them on the table by the wax tray.
'Did they come from the hospital garden?'
'Yes.' Jim gazed back frankly at Dr. Ransome. Recently he had begun to see him with a more adult eye. The long years of imprisonment, the constant disputes with the Japanese had made this young physician seem middle-aged. Dr. Ransome was often unsure of himself, as he was of Jim's theft.
'I have to give Basie something whenever I see him.'
'I know. It's a good thing that you're friends with Basie. He's a survivor, though survivors can be dangerous. Wars exist for people like Basie.' Dr. Ransome placed the tomatoes in Jim's hand. 'I want you to eat them, Jim. I'll get you something for Basie.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“His mother and father were agnostics, and Jim respected devout Christians in the same way that he respected people who were members of the Graf Zeppelin Club or shopped at the Chinese department stores, for their mastery of an exotic foreign ritual. Besides, those who worked hardest for others, like Mrs. Philips and Mrs. Gilmour and Dr. Ransome, often held beliefs that turned out to be correct.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“Already a sizable traffic jam blocked the Bund. Once again the crush and clutter of Shanghai had engulfed its invaders.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“Every night in Shanghai those Chinese too poor to pay for the burial of their relatives would launch the bodies from the funeral piers at Nantao, decking the coffins with paper flowers. Carried away on the tide, they came back on the next, returning to the waterfront of Shanghai with all the other debris abandoned by the city. Meadows of paper flowers drifted on running tide and clumped in miniature floating gardens around the old men and women, the young mothers and small children, whose swollen bodies seemed to have been fed during the night by the patient Yangtze.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
“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.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun
J.G. Ballard
Born place: in Shanghai, China
Born date November 15, 1930
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“The pigs were pushing their noses through the slats in the truck bed, which made Langston so unaccountably sad she thought she would have to sit down on the sidewalk. How is it possible, she thought, that a person can drive a thinking, feeling, animal to slaughter and not become less than an animal himself? And what were the pigs searching for, after all, but air and freedom?”
― Haven Kimmel, quote from The Solace of Leaving Early
“Na początku często z Niilą dyskutowaliśmy, czy nasze granie można uznać za knapsu. Słowo jest tornedalsko-fińskie i oznacza "babski", zatem coś, czym zajmują się tylko kobiety. Można by powiedzieć, że rola mężczyzn w Tornedalen ogranicza się tylko do jednego: nie być knapsu. Brzmi to jasno i zrozumiale, ale całość komplikują specjalne reguły, wymagające dziesiątków lat na przyswojenie, coś, czego są w stanie doświadczyć zwłaszcza mieszkający tu mężczyźni z południowej Szwecji. Pewne zajęcia są knapsu z założenia, zatem mężczyźni powinni ich unikać. Są to na przykład: robótki ręczne, zmiana zasłon, tkanie chodników, dojenie, podlewanie kwiatów i tym podobne. Drugą grupą są zajęcia definitywnie męskie: ścinanie drzew, polowanie na łosie, budowanie chat na zrąb, spławianie drewna i bójki na potańcówkach. Od dawien dawna świat podzielony był na dwie części, wszyscy wiedzieli, o co chodzi. Ale przyszedł dobrobyt. I nagle pojawiły się setki nowych zajęć i informacji, które wprowadzają pewien zamęt. Ponieważ pojęcie to przez stulecia kształtowało się wśród ludu nieświadomego zachodzących procesów, definicje nie nadążały. Oprócz kilku dziedzin. Silniki na przykład są domeną mężczyzn. Silniki spalinowe są bardziej męskie od elektrycznych. Samochody, śnieżne skutery i piły motorowe zatem nie są knapsu. Czy natomiast facet może szyć na maszynie? Ubijać śmietanę mikserem? Doić krowy automatyczną dojarką? Wyjmować naczynia ze zmywarki? Czy prawdziwy mężczyzna może odkurzać swój samochód, zachowując taki sam szacunek, jakim cieszył się wcześniej? Macie tu kwestie do przemyślenia. Jeszcze więcej kłopotów sprawiają inne nowinki. Czy na przykład jedzenie niskotłuszczowej margaryny jest knapsu? Posiadanie farelki w samochodzie? Kupowanie żelu do włosów? Medytowanie? Pływanie z maską? Używanie plastra? Wkładanie psiej kupy do specjalnego plastikowego worka?”
― Mikael Niemi, quote from Popular Music from Vittula
“When ordinary human beings perform extraordinary acts of generosity, endurance or compassion, we are all made richer by their example. Like the rivers that flow out of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, the inspiration they generate washes down to the rest of us. It waters everyone's fields.”
― Greg Mortenson, quote from Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan
“I like the way he danced. And then I like the way we danced together.”
― Anita Diamant, quote from Good Harbor
“The only boys I ever saw here had glasses thick enough to be considered bullet proof and GPA's fit for Harvard.”
― Abra Ebner, quote from Book of Love
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