Date: 1984

"At any given time, I'm aware that my mind and imagination are setting towards a particular compass point, that the whole edifice is preparing itself to lean in one way, like a great ramshackle barn."

— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)

Date: 1984

"Yes, if I'm not working, I talk over ideas to myself on the machine, by which I mean I type out little ideas, let my mind wander."

— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)

Date: 1984

"Imagination is the shortest route between any two conceivable points, and more than equal to any physical rearrangement of the brain's functions."

— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)

Date: September 29, 1985

"My father used to say, 'Your mind is like a parachute. If it won't open when you need it, it is not much good.' I have an open mind."

— Wilson, George C.

Date: 1985

"In the dark the mind runs on like a devouring machine, the only thing awake in the universe."

— Delillo, Don (b. 1936)

Date: 1985

"If the soul is just the story that it tells, then / Did his answer, his smile, / The way he took his comb out of his back pocket / And slicked his hair back, / Spite the soul with something like the soul?"

— Levis, Larry Patrick (1946-1996)

Date: 1985

"The Self sounds like a guy raking leaves / Off his walk. It sounds like the scrape of the rake. / The soul is just a story the scraping tells."

— Levis, Larry Patrick (1946-1996)

Date: 1986

"For surely, with every day that passes, our memories grow less certain, as even a statue in marble is worn away by rain, till at last we can no longer tell what shape the sculptor's hand gave it."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 1986

"But it was only the heart's / racketing flywheel stuttering I want, I want // until exhaustion, until I was a guest in the yoke / of my body by the last margin of land where the river // mingles with the sea & far off daylight whitens, / a rending & yielding I must kneel before, as // bar...

— Hull, Lynda (1954-1994)

Date: 1986

"On the view of imagery I am sketching, the imagination systematically misinterprets in the interests of interior cinema."

— Skulsky, Harold