A Bit of Magic

“Much of writing be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.”
― J.B. Priestley

“We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.”
― J.B. Priestley, An Inspector Calls

“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

“Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves.”
― J.B. Priestley

“We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.”
― J.B. Priestley

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”
― J.B. Priestley

“One of the delights beyond the grasp of youth is that of Not Going. Not to have an invitation for the dance, the party, the picnic, the excursion is to be diminished. To have an invitation and then not to be able to go -- oh cursed spite! Now I do not care the rottenest fig whether I receive an invitation or not. After years of illusion, I finally decided I was missing nothing by Not Going. I no longer care whether I am missing anything or not.”
― J.B. Priestley, Delight

“To show a child what has once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own, so that there is now a double delight seen in the glow of trust and affection, this is happiness.”
― J.B. Priestley

“Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness—when a glorious idea comes to mind, and 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

“But the point is, now, at this moment, or any moment, we're only cross-sections of our real selves. What we really are is the whole stretch of ourselves, all our time, and when we come to the end of this life, all those selves, all our time, will be us - the real you, the real me. And then perhaps we'll find ourselves in another time, which is only another kind of dream.”
― J.B. Priestley, Time And The Conways

“To say that these men paid their shillings 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.”
― J.B. Priestley

“The way to write a book is the application of the seat of one's pants to the seat of one's chair”
― J.B. Priestley

“She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.”
― J.B. Priestley

“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”
― 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

“Time's only a kind of dream, Kay. If it wasn't, it would have to destroy everything —the whole universe— and then remake it again every tenth of a second. But Time doesn't
destroy anything. It merely moves us on —in this life— from one peephole to the next.”
― J.B. Priestley, Time And The Conways

“During dinner at the Dersinghams in "Angel Pavement"...
"Do you ever watch rugger, Golspie?" Mr Dersingham demanded down the table.
"What, rugby? Haven't see a match for years," replied Mr Golspie. "Prefer the other kind when I do watch one."
Major Trape raised his eyebrows, "What, you a soccah man? Not this professional stuff? Don't tell me you like that."
"What's the matter with it?"
"Oh, come now! I mean, you can't possibly --I mean it's a dirty business, selling fellahs for money and so on, very unsporting.”
― J.B. Priestley, Angel Pavement

“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

“Both the fanatical believers and the fixed attitude people are loud in their scorn of what they call “woolly minds.”… [But it] is the woolly mind that combines scepticism about everything with credulity about everything. Being woolly it has no hard edges. It is easy, pliant, yet it has its own toughness. Because it bends, it does not break. … The woolly mind realizes that we live in an unimaginable gigantic, complicated, mysterious universe. To try to stuff the vast bewildering creation into a few neat pigeon-holes is absurd. We don’t know enough, and to pretend we do is mere intellectual conceit. … The best we can do is keep looking out for clues, for anything that will light us a step or two in the dark.”
― J.B. Priestley, Over the Long High Wall

“When we are older we are able to live in - and make the best of - one continuing world, but when we are young we feel sometimes that in an unknown and sinister fashion the whole cosmos has been changed, one age ended and another begun when we were not noticing what was happening.”
― J.B. Priestley, Lost Empires

“I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces away from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse them of not having any faces.”
― J.B. Priestley

“Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game: the heavy financial interests;... the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press; ... but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt, and it has gone out and conquered the world."
J.B. Priestley in English Journey (referring to football), published in 1934.”
― J.B. Priestley, English Journey

“Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.”
― J.B. Priestley

“We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.”
― J.B. Priestley