J.B. Priestley Quotes

What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others.

Childhood, catching our imagination when it is fresh and tender, never lets go of us.

In a matriarchy men should be encouraged to take it easy, for most women prefer live husbands to blocks of shares and seats on the board.

Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process.

We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.

I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse 'em of not having any faces.

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.

In a world shaped and colored more and more by politicians, the nations meet politically, and hardly any other way to settle their differences.

But it is not given to every electrician to die in so glorious a manner as the justly envied Richmann.

Will is nothing more than a particular case of the general doctrine of association of ideas, and therefore a perfectly mechanical thing.

Depending upon shock tactics is easy, whereas writing a good play is difficult. Pubic hair is no substitute for wit.

One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.

Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes.

From the fame opinion of a soul distinct from the body came the practice of praying, first for the dead, and then to them with a long train of other absurd opinions, and superstitious practices.

Too many christians have been chargeable with... confounding the Logos of Plato with that of John , and making of it a second person in the trinity, than which no two things can be more different.

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.

I'm in the business of providing people with secondary satisfactions. It wouldn't have done me much good if they had all written their own plays, would it?

Our dourest parsons, who followed the nonconformist fashion of long extemporary prayers, always seemed to me to be bent on bullying God.

The people who pretend that dying is rather like strolling into the next room always leave me unconvinced. Death, like birth, must be a tremendous event.

Sometimes you might think the machines we worship make all the chief appointments, promoting the human beings who seem closest to them.

I'm from Canada and my wife is from St. Albans, so I feel a great kinship with the Brits.

I fancy that the Hell of Too Many People would occupy a respectable place in the hierarchy of infernal regions.

To love to teach is one thing, to love those you teach is another.

In spite of recent jazzed-up one-day matches, cricket to be fully appreciated demands leisure, some sunny warm days and an understanding of its finer points.

This is unfortunately a world in which things find it difficult, frequently impossible, to live up to their names.

Writers were a strange sort; I knew that much from the newspapers.

From the plough to paper, from the wheel to house, from tool handles to sailing ships. Man would have been nothing without trees.

No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith

I have always been a grumbler. I am designed for the part - sagging face, weighty underlip, rumbling, resonant voice. Money couldn't buy a better grumbling outfit.

It is hard to tell where the MCC ends and the Church of England begins.

A synopsis is a cold thing. You do it with the front of your mind. If you're going to stay with it, you never get quite the same magic as when you're going all out.

A loving wife will do anything for her husband except stop criticizing him and trying to improve him.

A novelist who writes nothing for 10 years finds his reputation rising. Because I keep on producing books they say there must be something wrong with this fellow.

Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness when a glorious idea comes to mind and, secondly, when a last page has been written and you haven't had time to know how much better it ought to be.

To make the most of Christmas, focus on Christ.

Nothing scares me, because I used to think I was indestructible. Now I know I'm indestructible, not to mention my spine is indestructible. It's all titanium.

I never exceed the posted speed limit.

One of the fun things about being an actor is stepping outside yourself and outside of your own experience. It's challenging yourself to totally commit to something that in your core is so wrong.

I love Canada. I am from Canada. I will bash the Canadian government but never Canada.

I miss my boats, and I miss having the ability to be out on the water during the daytime and then go skiing at night.

I love filming in Britain.

Los Angeles is a one-horse town. It's entirely driven by the entertainment business and that's what it is.

I'm very happy to be directing though. It's a challenge, and it's a lot of fun for me to be on set.

You can face fear, or feel it, her dad used to say. … Feel it, and it eats you alive. Face it, and you get to kick some ugly alien butt. Okay, he never said that. I wonder if they even have butts.

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age. I missed it coming and going.

In all controversies, it is better to wait the decisions of time, which are slow and sure, than to take those of synods, which are often hasty and injudicious

One of the delights known to age and beyond the grasp of youth is that of 'not going'!