There can be no doubt that smoking nowadays is largely a miserable automatic business. People use tobacco without ever taking an intelligent interest in it. They do not experiment, compare, fit the tobacco to the occasion. A man should always be pleasantly conscious of the fact that he is smoking.” Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats.”

John Boynton Priestley, OM (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984), known by his pen name J.B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, social commentator and broadcaster.

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I fancy that the Hell of Too Many People would occupy a respectable place in the hierarchy of infernal regions.” 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.” Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own - this is happiness. J. B. Priestley Britain, which in the years immediately before this war was rapidly losing such democratic virtues as it possessed, is now being bombed and burned into democracy.” I have lived longer than you. I have thought more, and I have suffered more. And I tell you there is more truth to the fundamental nature of things in the most foolish fairy tales than there is in any of your complaints against life. J. B. Priestley I know only two words of American slang, 'swell' and 'lousy'. I think 'swell' is lousy, but 'lousy' is swell.The father of modern plastic surgery, Harold Gillies, reported in 1934 that restoring the ability to smile made patients’ faces “feel much more comfortable”. In addition, Gillies observed, “The psychological effect is also one of considerable value.” On the interpretive side, Charles Darwin discusses the meaning and value of smiles in his 1872 landmark study The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Like many, Darwin sees a smile as the first part of a continuum. Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats. I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. J. B. Priestley It’s one of the most fundamental things that humans do. Smile. Newborns can manage it spontaneously, as a reflex, and this is sometimes misinterpreted by new parents as a reaction to their presence, although it’s not until six to eight weeks of age that babies smile in a social way. That new parents optimistically interpret the first reflex smiles reflects the complexity of smiling: there is the physical act and then the interpretation society gives to it – the smile and what the smile means. A loving wife will do anything for her husband except stop criticizing him and trying to improve him.”