“If you're against globalisation, it doesn't achieve much by sort of bo...” — J. G. Ballard Quote

If you're against globalisation, it doesn't achieve much by sort of bombing the head offices of Shell or Nestle. You unsettle people much more by blowing up an Oxfam shop because people can't understand the motive.

One of the things I took from my wartime experiences was that reality was a stage set... the comfortable day-to-day life, school, the home where one lives and all the rest of it... could be dismantled overnight.

I would love to have been a painter in the tradition of the surrealist painters who I admire so much.

There were no museums or galleries in Shanghai, but I was very keen on art - I was always sketching and copying, and sometimes I think that my whole career as a writer has been the substitute work of an unfulfilled painter.

Rain is good for me. I feel like I achieve clarity actually when it rains. The longer I have to sit and wait, the clearer my game becomes to me.

The whole world loves a maverick and the whole world wants the maverick to achieve something nobler than simple rebellion.

I regret what happened. I saw no other possibility to achieve my goal. It was not hooliganism.

I've always been interested in public health approaches because it seems to me we have this yearning for silver bullets, and that is not in fact how change comes about. Change comes through silver buckshot - a lot of little things that achieve results. That's a classic public health approach.