J. B. Priestley Quotes

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have.

Two years passed, and I had no second book to follow 'Roots.' Four years passed, six years. When a decade had passed without me having another book to follow 'Roots,' I was having serious private frustrations with myself.

One day you are a hero, the next day, media and people put you down if you are not giving your best.

The more successful you become, the more known you become, everything you say is minutely scrutinised a lot.

Sometimes I think to myself, "I wonder if Meryl Streep is ever like, 'Oh gosh, everyone thinks I'm so perfect! I wish that someone would give me a note.'"

I don't set out to write a play a year. Sometimes I've written two plays a year. There was a period of a year and half when I only wrote half a play. If it depresses some critics that I seem prolific, well, that's their problem as much as mine.

You're only as good as your last book.

You know, I guess I'm like any other political figure: Everybody wants to be loved.

All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

Some people are upset to see you doing ordinary things. Those people, if they were a celebrity, they would have an entourage.

It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine.

There are a lot of people who want to be famous nowadays: singers, actors and, you know, it's like a roller-coaster. And when you are very sensitive - I'm very sensitive - you have to be very strong... You have to just not pay attention to the people who hate you, you know?

I remember when I was maybe 27 years old and kind of at the height of my movie stardom - it was around the time of the Oscar and this and that. I think I was very much believing my own hype, which how could you not? I was sitting with my dad, feeling great about my life and everything that was happening, and he was like, "You know, you're getting a little weird...You're kind of an asshole." And I was like, "What the hell?" I was totally devastated. But it turned out to be basically the best thing that ever happened to me.

There are a lot of spikes that can happen when what you're doing starts to get attention or people start to talk about it. They can just kind of really do a number on your reasons for making music.

A man in public life expects to be sneered at -- it is the fault of his elevated situation, and not of himself.

Fame, if not double fac'd, is double mouth'd, And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds; On both his wings, one black, the other white, Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.

You know, if you're going to be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wanting people to talk about you and wanting everyone to know who you are. But that also means there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don't like you. No matter who you are. I'm sure there's somebody out there who doesn't like Betty White because she's short and has white hair.

It is true, I worry about the hype. The only person more over-hyped than me is you.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you’re dead, you’ll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren’t holding any paper.

There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough.

What can you do. You get a name, you're called 'Thomas Bernhard', and it stays that way for the rest of your life. And if at some point you go for a walk in the woods, and someone takes a photo of you, then for the next eighty years you're always walking in the woods. There's nothing you can do about it.

There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.

After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.