J. B. Priestley Quotes

I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

It's wonderful that nothing you write is ever going to be as beautiful as what's in your head, because that gap is where the art can enter and begin to stretch its limbs.

Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world.

For a creative person there's just as much pleasure in writing an eight-line poem as there is in writing a blockbuster play ... of the old '50s type.

I feel the written word, poetry and literature is just one of the most beautiful things that human beings do. So we have to fight for it.

Writing for me, even what you call serious writing, is play.

Well-written words are music.

I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.

I write all the time - I write poetry, I love to write.

Well, I like to write poetry. I'm a published poet.

And if they haven't got poetry in them, there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

Women who are inclined to write poetry at all are inspired by being mad at something.

The poets whom I knew then were all men and all seemed dauntingly sure of themselves - although I am sure that really they were as uncertain as I was.

Could I have chosen my own genius, I should have made myself a great poet.

When I want to read a novel, I write one.

Working with language requires beauty for me.

I always knew that was what I wanted to do - to write, particularly poetry.

I hope readers will think that 'The Thing About Life' is beautifully patterned, a tapestry.

When it comes to poetry, I think partly the numbers of people attempting to write poems is probably a result or the reaction to technology.

Whether I'm writing scripts or prose, the goal is identical. To give pleasure. Now whether I succeed or not is up for debate, and, mostly, I fail. But I try. I like to make things. It's a way to stay busy during one's ephemeral and confusing life.

Art is action. The way I live my life to its highest degree is by writing, the practice of art.

Most difficult thing in the world, to write a play. Do you know the story of Shaw at the Fabian society? H.G. Welles said "I'm terribly sorry I've missed the last five meetings, I've been terribly busy, I'm engaged in writing a scientific pamphlet on the effects of radioactivity in 1984 and I've produced a novel, and various pieces of science fiction to do, and I've had a bit of personal trouble, and I had my copy to bring out for the newspaper." Shaw leapt up and said, "I've not missed one meeting, and I have written a play!" hardest thing in the world. If it were easy they'd all be at it.

I just don't know what makes a picture, really - the thing that makes it is something unique, as far as I can understand. Just like one guy can write a sentence and it's beautiful and another one can write it and it's dead. What the difference is, I don't know.