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.
"Meat Trademark"'s [answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/46704/789) pointed the way thanks (and I've accepted that; this is just to elaborate): I'm absolutely sure I'm remembering (badly, almost 3 decades on from when I read it I suspect) this section from Zodiac 2000's "The Sign of the Radar Bowl":

> 
> As they waited in the stationary traffic on the crowded deck of the
>  flyover Renata fiddled impatiently with the radio, unable to penetrate
>  the static from the cars around them. Smiling at her, he turned off
>  the sound and pointed to the sky over her head. 'Ignore the horizon.
>  Beyond the Pole Star you can hear the island universes.' He sat back,
>  trying to ignore the thousand satellite transmissions, a barbarous
>  chatter below the great music of the quasars.
> 
> 
> 

No idea how I got from that to "listen" and "calling", although there is an obvious auditory theme. And it does have quasars, eventually.