The human body as an obedient coolie, to be fed and hosed down, and given just enough sexual freedom to sedate itself. - J. G. Ballard

After the commonplaces of everyday life, with their muffled dramas, all my organic expertise for dealing with physical injury had long been blunted or forgotten. The crash was the only real experience I had been through for years.

The cine-camera and television set allow us to perceive slow motion. The concept of anything other than real time had never occurred to anybody until the first slow-motion movies were shown, and this radically altered people's perceptions of nature.

Elaborate burial customs are a sure sign of decadence.