Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by J. B. Priestley (British Novelist, Playwright, Essayist)

J. B. Priestley (1894–1984,) fully John Boynton Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright, broadcaster, and social commentator whose canon includes more than 100 plays and books. He is noted for his shrewd characterization in works such as The Good Companions (1929,) a picaresque novel, and the mystery drama An Inspector Calls (1947.)

Born in Bradford, Priestley served in the infantry in World War I (1914–19) and then studied English literature at Trinity Hall-Cambridge. He had by then made a reputation by critical writings such as The English Comic Characters (1925) and books on George Meredith (1926) and Thomas Love Peacock (1927) in ‘The English Men of Letters’ series when the geniality of his novel The Good Companions (1929) gained him wide popularity. Other novels followed it, though not all of the equal merit, including Angel Pavement (1930,) Let the People Sing (1939,) Jenny Villiers (1947,) and The Magicians (1954.)

Priestley was a prolific dramatist—his reputation as a dramatist was established by Dangerous Corner (1932,) Time and the Conways (1937,) and other plays on space-time themes, as well as popular comedies such as Laburnum Grove (1933,) and his psychological mystery, An Inspector Calls (1947.)

Priestley was an astute, original, and controversial commentator on contemporary society—Journey Down the Rainbow (1955,) written with his archaeologist-writer wife, Jacquetta Hawkes, was a jovial indictment of American life (they also collaborated on the play Dragon’s Mouth (1952.)) In a serious vein, his collected essays, Thoughts in the Wilderness (1957,) deal with present and future social problems.

Priestley is remembered for his wartime radio broadcasts, too—he broadcast a series of short propaganda radio talks credited with strengthening civilian morale during the 1940 Battle of Britain. Jacquetta Hawkes, with whom he collaborated on the play Dragon’s Mouth (1952,) was an English archaeologist and writer.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by J. B. Priestley

It is no use speaking in soft, gentle tones if everyone else is shouting.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Communication

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Praise, Pride

We pay when old for the excesses of youth.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Youth, Time, Age

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.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Youth, Respect

Already we viewers, when not viewing, have begun to whisper to one another that the more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Communication, Television

Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats.
—J. B. Priestley

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Weather, Snow, Seasons

Living in an 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
Topics: Advertising

No people were ever better than their laws, though many have been worse.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Law

We plan, we toil, we suffer – in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol’s eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Eating

One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of Not Going.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Age, Aging

To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child’s delight added to your own—this is happiness.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Parents, Parenting

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Feelings, The Present, Morning, Fresh

A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.
—J. B. Priestley
Topics: Time, Time Management, Travel

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