Question: I have a distant memory of once reading a JG Ballard short story in which a character utters a phrase similar to:

> 
> "Listen, you can hear the quasars calling!"
> 
> 
> 

or possibly

> 
> "Listen, can you hear the quasars calling?"
> 
> 
> 

or something along those lines. Maybe it was actually "cosmos calling" or "galaxies calling" or "great spirals calling" or something.

For a long time I just assumed it must have been "The Voices of Time", but having reread that recently, it isn't (although I'm pretty sure the story I'm looking for has the same hallmark Ballard obsessions as TVoT, so maybe from the same era).

Answer: 
In the mini-story cycle [ZODIAC 2000](http://books.google.com/books?id=D2cmHHAMrlEC&pg=PT1014&dq=ballard%20%22sign%20of%20the%20radar%20bowl%22%20quasars&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XRe3Ut_0KKfuyQGAuoCYAQ&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ballard%20%22sign%20of%20the%20radar%20bowl%22%20quasars&f=false), *The Sign of the Radar Bowl* had a reference to "the great music of the quasars" and *The Sign of the IUD* had a "strange young woman, with her anonymous apartment and random conversation filled with sudden references to quasars". Is this it?

I have a PDF file of The Complete Stories and these are the only references using "quasar" or "quasars" that are close after scanning all 2,357 pages. Maybe it was a different author, or possibly it was from one of his [novels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard#Works).

As for this being from a similar era, Zodiac 2000 is from 1978 while The Voices of Time is from 1960. Still, like many great artists, *writers / directors (David Cronenberg being a prime example, even adapting a Ballard novel for film) / etc*, of speculative fiction, they stick to similar themes and have obsessions that span their entire career. Hope this helps.
"The University of Death", which is part of "The Atrocity Exhibition" and not in the Complete Short Stories, has the line "All night he watched the sky, listening to the
time-music of the quasars."

"Zodiac 2000", which *is* in the Complete Short Stories, has the line "But at least he could look up at the sky and listen to the time-music of the quasars."

Searching for "quasars calling", I can't find anything, but you might look at the Ballard Concordance at <http://bonsall-books.co.uk/concordance/>