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

“With the speed of a cobra, Scapegrace lashed out at Bagatelle, catching him on the ear with a vicious chop. He ducked as Shun reached for him, and spun with a kick that came dangerously close to landing. Mud fired off a punch that Scapegrace blocked with his chin, and Scapegrace countered with a flailing hand to the air as he fell.”
― Derek Landy, quote from Last Stand of Dead Men


“You don't understand," Lionheart said, turning his back on the cat. "No one does."
"While I am a firm believer in the uniqueness of each person," said the cat, "the motications of the spirit are as predictable as the seasons.”
― Anne Elisabeth Stengl, quote from Moonblood


“You better get used to it. You're going to be on the ground a lot today, but cheer up... tomorrow you'll be an expert.”
― Judy Blume, quote from Forever . . .


“Then there was a hard brown lozenge called the Tonsil Tickler. The Tonsil Tickler tasted and smelled very strongly of chloroform. We had not the slightest doubt that these things were saturated in the dreaded anaesthetic which, as Thwaites had many times pointed out to us, could put you to sleep for hours at a stretch. "If my father has to saw off somebody's leg," he said, "he pours chloroform on to a pad and the person sniffs it and goes to sleep and my father saws his leg off without him even feeling it."
"But why do they put it into sweets and sell them to us?" we asked him. You might think a question like this would have baffled Thwaites. But Thwaites was never baffled.
"My father says Tonsil Ticklers were invented for dangerous prisoners in jail," he said. "They give them one with each meal and the chloroform makes them sleepy and stops them rioting."
"Yes," we said, "but why sell them to children?"
"It's a plot," Thwaites said. "A grown-up plot to keep us quiet.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Boy: Tales of Childhood


“المعلومات أنها العمود الفقري لأي عمل”
― Jeffrey Archer, quote from As the Crow Flies


Interesting books

Red Sparrow
(20.7K)
Red Sparrow
by Jason Matthews
The Void
(6.4K)
The Void
by J.D. Horn
Hardwired
(30.4K)
Hardwired
by Meredith Wild
Light Years
(3.9K)
Light Years
by James Salter
Love Always, Kate
(1.7K)
Love Always, Kate
by D. Nichole King
The Never List
(10.8K)
The Never List
by Koethi Zan

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.