Quotes from Super-Cannes

J.G. Ballard ·  400 pages

Rating: (3.4K votes)


“Sooner or later, all games become serious.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


“If their work is satisfying people don't need leisure in the old-fashioned sense. No one ever asks what Newton or Darwin did to relax, or how Bach spent his weekends. At Eden-Olympia work is the ultimate play, and play the ultimate work.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


“The twentieth century ended with its dreams in ruins. The notion of the community as a voluntary association of enlightened citizens has died forever. We realize how suffocatingly humane we've become, dedicated to moderation and the middle way. The suburbanization of the soul has overrun our planet like the plague.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


“The house was silent, but somewhere in the garden was a swimming pool filled with unsettled water.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


“The film festival measured a mile in length, from the Martinez to the Vieux Port, where sales executives tucked into their platters of fruits de mer, but was only fifty yards deep. For a fortnight the Croisette and its grand hotels willingly became a facade, the largest stage set in the world. Without realizing it, the crowds under the palm trees were extras recruited to play their traditional roles. As they cheered and hooted, they were far more confident than the film actors on display, who seemed ill at ease when they stepped from their limos, like celebrity criminals ferried to a mass trial by jury at the Palais, a full-scale cultural Nuremberg furnished with film clips of the atrocities they had helped to commit.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes



“I love the smell of male urine and the reek of his groin on my bath towels after he’d had a shower”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


“People no longer need enemies--in this millennium their great dream is to become victims. Only their psychopathies can set them free...”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


“Nothing about sex ever shocks women. At least, men’s kind of sex.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes


About the author

J.G. Ballard
Born place: in Shanghai, China
Born date November 15, 1930
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?”
― Richard Connell, quote from The Most Dangerous Game


“I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic — in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.”
― Anaïs Nin, quote from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934


“Rejoice, Micayon. Yours is a prophet’s dream. The Great Nostalgia has made your world too small, and made you a stranger in that world. It has unloosed your imagination from the grip of
the despotic senses; and imagination has brought you forth your Faith.
And Faith shall lift you high above the stagnant, stifling world and carry you across the dreary emptiness and up the Rugged Mountains where every faith must needs be tried and purified of
the last dregs of Doubt.

And Faith so purified and triumphant shall lead you to the boundaries of the eternally green summit and there deliver you into the hands of Understanding.

Having discharged its task, Faith shall retire, and Understanding shall guide your steps to the unutterable Freedom of the
Summit which is the true, the boundless, and all-including home of God and the Overcoming
Man.”
― Mikhail Naimy, quote from The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark


“I don’t know which is right!”
― quote from Little Pilgrim's Progress: From John Bunyan's Classic


“People, he told her, are shaped somehow by their climate and the land they live in. Those who live by the sea are like the currents and tides; they go and come, and discover many shores. Their words and loves are like water that slips between one's fingers and is never still. Mountain people have fought the mountain to win their place. Once they have conquered it they protect their mountain, and others coming from far below in the valley risk being seen as enemies. Hill people take some time before greeting each other.”
― Gil Courtemanche, quote from A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali


Interesting books

Defiant
(2.8K)
Defiant
by Pamela Clare
Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
(1.6K)
Intimacy: Trusting O...
by Osho
Through My Eyes
(9.6K)
Through My Eyes
by Tim Tebow
Promised
(21.5K)
Promised
by Jodi Ellen Malpas
The High Druid's Blade
(3.7K)
The High Druid's Bla...
by Terry Brooks
The Night in Lisbon
(8.6K)
The Night in Lisbon
by Erich Maria Remarque

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.