I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.

Ballard’s declaration is a manifesto for imagination as an active, world-shaping force rather than mere escapism. The escalating verbs—“remake,” “release,” “hold back,” “transcend,” “charm,” “ingratiate,” “enlist”—suggest imagination as both moral and aesthetic agency: it can uncover inner truths, resist darkness (psychic, social, or historical), and even defy mortality through art’s afterlife. The juxtaposition of the sublime (“transcend death”) with the modern and banal (“charm motorways”) is characteristically Ballardian, insisting that late‑modern landscapes and damaged minds (“madmen”) are legitimate territories for visionary transformation. Imagination becomes a tool for empathy and estrangement at once—entering other consciousnesses while re-enchanting a technologized world.