J. G. Ballard Writing Quotations

Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it.

Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage, I think, that lead us from an innocent world of contentment, drunkenness, and good humor, to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements.

I came to live in Shepperton in 1960. I thought: the future isn't in the metropolitan areas of London. I want to go out to the new suburbs, near the film studios. This was the England I wanted to write about, because this was the new world that was emerging.

It's true that I have very little idea what I shall be writing next, but at the same time I have a powerful premonition of everything that lies ahead of me, even ten years ahead.

Yes, sometimes I think that all my writing is nothing more than the compensatory work of a frustrated painter.

But I wouldn't recommend writing. You can be a successful writer and never meet another soul. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

If I don't write, I begin to feel unsettled and uneasy, as I gather people do who are not allowed to dream.