Aging & Wisdom Quote by J.B. Priestley

Priestley flatters writers while quietly moving the goalposts for what counts as greatness: not polish, not popularity, but a kind of metaphysical alertness. “Of this age” is the tell. Writing in a century of mass media, world wars, and swaggering ideologies, Priestley is carving out a refuge for literature that refuses to behave like propaganda or product. The line positions the writer less as expert than as witness: someone who can’t quite settle the account of being alive.

“Are aware” does a lot of work. It’s not “solve,” not “explain,” not even “confront.” Priestley is arguing for humility as an aesthetic stance. The best writers, in his framing, are those who keep the existential question open, letting ambiguity generate pressure in the prose. That’s also a swipe at the managerial tone of modernity - the promise that science, politics, or psychology will tidy the mess. Priestley, who famously toyed with time and moral consequence in plays like An Inspector Calls, understood how narrative can expose the thinness of certainty. Mystery isn’t a fog machine; it’s a discipline.

The subtext is cultural triage. When an era becomes loud with answers, “mystery” becomes a marker of seriousness, even decency. Priestley is defending art as a form of vigilance: the refusal to anesthetize experience with ready-made explanations. Great writing, here, is a practiced sensitivity to the fact that existence doesn’t yield to slogans - and that pretending otherwise is how ages go badly wrong.