J.b. Priestley Quotes

But what is this clock, marking only so many years, that such men seem to consult in the dark of their being? We do not know. All we do know for certain is that no such clock, no such warnings, can come out of the passing time that we are told is all we have. They belong to a larger idea of Time, like all these dreams that came true.

~ J.b. Priestley

What appears to be definite and precise does not belong to any acceptable reality. It is only the experiences, the queer previsions, the fleeting premonitions, that are real. Vague and insubstantial though they may appear to be, compared with anything else in the mists and shifting lights of Time theory, they loom up like mountains of iron ore.

~ 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

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

Nowadays, it is true, we have mass media and expert propaganda to spread suspicion and fear. But the people I mean—and they form the great majority—are not suspicious and fearful, as many educated and more influential persons are. Propaganda has not made them accept the Bomb. We protesters, though we may have won over some of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, have not made them reject it. They remain profoundly, astonishingly, shockingly indifferent.

~ J.b. Priestley

She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.

~ J.b. Priestley