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. J. B. Priestley More Quotes by J. B. Priestley More Quotes From J. B. Priestley There can be no doubt that smoking nowadays is largely a miserable automatic business. People use tobacco without ever taking an intelligent interest in it. They do not experiment, compare, fit the tobacco to the occasion. A man should always be pleasantly conscious of the fact that he is smoking. J. B. Priestley intelligent men people There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent. J. B. Priestley too-much genius clever If there was a little room somewhere in the British Museum that contained only about twenty exhibits and good lighting, easy chairs, and a notice imploring you to smoke, I believe I should become a museum man. J. B. Priestley men museums believe Nearly everything possible had been done to spoil the game: the heavy financial interest; the absurd transfer and player-selling system; the lack of any birth or residential qualifications; the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press; the monstrous partisanships of the crowds. J. B. Priestley player football soccer I fancy that the Hell of Too Many People would occupy a respectable place in the hierarchy of infernal regions. J. B. Priestley hierarchy fancy people What a grand, higgledy-piggledy, sensible old place Norwich is! J. B. Priestley norwich old-places sensible The real lost souls don't wear their hair long and play guitars. They have crew cuts and trained minds, sign on for research in biological warfare, and don't give their parents a moment's worry. J. B. Priestley cutting real hair The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence. J. B. Priestley existence mystery age Sometimes you might think the machines we worship make all the chief appointments, promoting the human beings who seem closest to them. J. B. Priestley machines technology thinking To make the most of Christmas, focus on Christ. J. B. Priestley focus christ On the 1st of August, 1774, I endeavoured to extract air from mercurius calcinates per se [mercury oxide]; and I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from it very readily. … I admitted water to it [the extracted air], and found that it was not imbibed by it. But what surprized me more than I can well express, was, that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame… I was utterly at a loss how to account for it. J. B. Priestley air loss mean 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. J. B. Priestley prayer death people California, that advance post of our civilization, with its huge aircraft factories, TV and film studios, automobile way of life... its flavourless cosmopolitanism, its charlatan philosophies and religions, its lack of anything old and well-tried rooted in tradition and character. J. B. Priestley character philosophy civilization Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes. J. B. Priestley endless clothes marriage 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. J. B. Priestley block husband men 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. J. B. Priestley mind two ideas 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. J. B. Priestley cold magic mind 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. J. B. Priestley grumbling sagging voice The Canadian is often a baffled man because he feels different from his British kindred and his American neighbours, sharply refused to be lumped together with either of them, yet cannot make plain his difference. J. B. Priestley differences together men A loving wife will do anything for her husband except stop criticizing him and trying to improve him. J. B. Priestley women wife husband
