We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.
J. B. PriestleyRead
Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is a complex process that requires mental effort and creativity, often involving challenges similar to pregnancy and childbirth.
This quote by J. B. Priestley compares the act of writing to the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. Just as pregnancy involves nurturing an idea until it reaches maturity, writing necessitates a similar gestation period for thoughts to develop into coherent expressions. Each piece of writing is like a difficult delivery, indicating the challenges authors face in bringing their ideas to fruition, highlighting the struggles and creative labor involved in the writing process.
Themes
WritingCreativityProcessChallengesIdeas
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, you might say, 'As J. B. Priestley noted, much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries, so be patient with your ideas.'
More from J. B. Priestley
All quotes βBut some of us are beginning to pull well away, in our irritation, from...the exquisite tasters, the vintage snobs, the three-star Michelin gourmets. There is, we feel, a decent area somewhere between boiled carrots and Beluga caviare, sour plonk and Chateau Lafitte, where we can take care of our gullets and bellies without worshipping them.
J. B. PriestleyRead
A novelist who writes nothing for 10 years finds his reputation rising. Because I keep on producing books they say there must be something wrong with this fellow.
J. B. PriestleyRead
There is romance, the genuine glinting stuff, in typewriters, and not merely in their development from clumsy giants into agile dwarfs, but in the history of their manufacture, which is filled with raids, battles, lonely pioneers, great gambles, hope, fear, despair, triumph. If some of our novels could be written by the typewriters instead of on them, how much better they would be.
J. B. PriestleyRead
We plan, we toil, we suffer - in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs.
J. B. PriestleyRead
No matter how piercing and appalling his insights, the desolation_x000D_ creeping over his outer world, the lurid lights and shadows of his inner_x000D_ world, the writer must live with hope, work in faith
J. B. PriestleyRead
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