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J. B. Priestley Quotes (1894-1984)
Writer, Playwright, Novelist
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About J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley OM (13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English playwright, novelist, social commentator, biographer, literary critic, screenwriter and broadcaster. During his lifetime, he combined popular success with critical respect.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful J. B. Priestley quotes.
“A man can afford to let himself go in a hen-house.”
“Your mother knows no more about organization than a — a prize rabbit.”
“The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”
“Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.”
“Fifty years ago I seemed to myself older than other people assumed me to be; now I seem younger.”
“Those no-sooner-have-I-touched-the-pillow people are past my comprehension. There is something suspiciously bovine about them.”
“I am not an atheist, but I cannot agree with men who talk about God as if He had once attended a Speech Day at their theological college.”
“She seemed to have had a sudden terrible glimpse of life as it really was, and was ready to weep at the thought of its strange dusty littleness.”
“I […] thoroughly detest [novels that] fasten on to some historical figure, offering me bogus biography, an unpleasant mixture of fact and fiction.”
“Living in age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.”
“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.”
“To say that these men paid their shilling to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink.”
“In spite of its size and range, this is […] a personal essay. It is a Time-haunted man addressing himself chiefly to all those people he knows from experience to be also Time-haunted.”
“[P]ursuing Time, we are like a knight on a quest, condemned to wander through innumerable forests, bewildered and baffled, because the magic beast he is looking for is the horse he is riding.”
“It should be realised that men will take enormous risks rather than be bored. War has been used before now to prevent a bored populace from getting into mischief, at the expense of its rulers.”
“I suppose -- in the last resort -- you trust life -- or you don't. Well -- I don't. There's something malicious . . . corrupt . . . cruel . . . at the heart of it. We don't belong. We're a mistake.”
“[Y]ou've got to put up a show of being tough nowadays, especially if you're a girl, or else they'd all be walking over you with nailed boots. They do that anyhow, in the long run, if you're a woman.”
“By the time they reached the hall, they were not so much friends as fellow-conspirators, for Youth, when it is exiled into the kingdoms of the old, at once turns itself into the strongest of secret societies.”
“We English certainly do not like working for work's sake. There is nothing inside us that cries to be set going at an early hour and kept at it until a late hour. We have no private passion for being industrious.”
“But then we assume on our paper that nobody thinks. Which is all right. But where we're wrong—and of course I'm not really including myself but mean the top boys—is in thinking that our readers, dumb as they are, take us seriously.”
J. B. Priestley Quotes by Topic
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J. B. Priestley on Cricket 2 quotes
View all 2 quotes on Cricket →J. B. Priestley on Writing 2 quotes
“Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.”
J. B. Priestley on Communication
“The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”
J. B. Priestley on Atheism
“God can stand being told by Professor Ayer and Marghanita Laski that He does not exist.”
J. B. Priestley on Pubic hair
“Depending upon shock tactics is easy, whereas writing a good play is difficult. Pubic hair is no substitute for wit.”
J. B. Priestley on Advertising
“Living in age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.”
J. B. Priestley on Politics
J. B. Priestley on Magic (supernatural)
J. B. Priestley on Nuclear weapons
“In plain words; now that Britain has told the world she has the H-Bomb, she should announce as early as possible that she has done with it, that she proposes to reject, in all circumstances, nuclear warfare. This is not pacifism. There is no suggestion here of abandoning the immediate defence of this island.... No, what should be abandoned is the idea of deterrence-by-threat-of-retaliation. There is no real security in it, no decency in it, no faith, hope, nor charity in it.”
What J. B. Priestley Said About Others
Discover personal opinions J. B. Priestley shared regarding contemporaries.
J. B. Priestley on H. G. Wells
J. B. Priestley on George Bernard Shaw
“Shaw presumes that his friend Stalin has everything under control. Well, Stalin may have made special arrangements to see that Shaw comes to no harm, but the rest of us in Western Europe do not feel quite so sure of our fate,especially those of us who do not share Shaw's curious admiration for dictators.”
Quotes About J. B. Priestley
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about J. B. Priestley from others.
Stanley Baldwin on J. B. Priestley
“Then, above all, the English people have a curious sense of humour, rather than wit. Humour comes from the heart; wit comes from the brain. We can laugh at ourselves. ... Well, laughter is one of the best things that God has given us, and with hearty laughter neither malice nor indecency can exist. And of all men who have shown us what that laughter can mean, none was like Dickens, every one of whose characters is English to the marrow; and if I might mention a living writer, I think the truest Englishmen are found in Mr. Priestley's novels.”
Graham Greene on J. B. Priestley
“Priestley became in the months after Dunkirk a leader second only in importance to Mr. Churchill. And he gave us what our other leaders have always failed to give us – an ideology.”
Jean Lucey Pratt on J. B. Priestley
“Priestley's broadcasts are excellent. I am astonished that the BBC allow them. He says insistently that this war is not to restore the old order, that we must not return to the old muddle and injustices. It is in our order to commence a period of reconstruction and new activity, so exciting and absorbing that Hitler and his Nazis will be forgotten in a few years. Already, he says, he has had letters telling him to get off the air before the government puts him where he belongs.”
Margaret Thatcher on J. B. Priestley
“During the war after the 9 o'clock news on Sundays there was Postscripts, a short talk on a topical subject, often by J. B. Priestley, who had a unique gift of cloaking left-wing views as solid, down to earth, Northern homespun philosophy.”
About J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley OM (13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English playwright, novelist, social commentator, biographer, literary critic, screenwriter and broadcaster. During his lifetime, he combined popular success with critical respect.