Ben Elton > Quotes

“This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.”
― Ben Elton, Bachelor Boys: The Young Ones Book

“The internet was supposed to liberate knowledge, but in fact it buried it, first under a vast sewer of ignorance, laziness, bigotry, superstition and filth and then beneath the cloak of political surveillance. Now...cyberspace exists exclusively to promote commerce, gossip and pornography. And of course to hunt down sedition. Only paper is safe. Books are the key. A book cannot be accessed from afar, you have to hold it, you have to read it.”
― Ben Elton, Blind Faith

“No!" Jimmy protested.”
― Ben Elton, Meltdown

“You think I look like a teletubby?”
― Ben Elton, Meltdown

“Artists don't create society, they reflect it”
― Ben Elton, Popcorn

“Beyond love, beyond unrequited love, perhaps even beyond any other passion known to humanity, deep, deep in the depths of the turgid, clinging, swamplike pit of despair that lies dormant within every soul, lurks JEALOUSY. Jealousy, that most demeaning and debilitating of emotions. Jealousy, which can double the strength of the love upon which it is based, but whilst doubling it, warp and pervert it, untill it is no longer recognizable as the thing of beauty it once was. Jealous love is no more like true love than Mr Hyde was like Dr Jekyll or a stagnant swamp is like a freshwater lake.”
― Ben Elton, Stark

“Books are the key. A book cannot be accessed from afar. You have to hold it, you have to read it.”
― Ben Elton, Blind Faith

“When the phone rings at 2.15am in the morning it's unlikely to be heralding something pleasant. What chance is there of its being good news? None. Only someone bad would ring at such an hour. Or someone with bad news.”
― Ben Elton, Blast from the Past

“You didn't wake up, your dreams just changed gear.”
― Ben Elton, Blast from the Past

“People in that crowd want to make poverty history, but NOT if they have to pay for it themselves”
― ben elton, Meltdown

“Kingsley watched her disappear from the room, wondering if his heart would break. Logic informed him that of course it would not. The heart was no more than a muscle, a pump which distributed blood about the body; it had nothing whatsoever to do with a man's emotions. But if that was the case, why did it ache so?”
― Ben Elton, The First Casualty

“People had got used to the planet dying.
They didn't care anymore, it had been lingering on for too long. The Earth was like some aged and slightly disgusting relative that just got sicker and sicker and yet refused to die. Requiring more and more attention, growing bigger tumours, bursting nastier sores and soiling its sheets ever more often. An embarrassment and an inconvenience, a constant reminder of family guilt.”
― Ben Elton, This Other Eden

“Any closer would unravel her mystery, the very thing which made her so truly beautiful...It was her mystery that he adored. He was in love with everything that he did not know about her... No real sexual encounter could ever match the secret one that he could nurture in his imagination... No living flesh could ever be the erotic equal of flesh kept private, untouchable and unknowable”
― Ben Elton, Blind Faith

“The worst thing about being a great power is when you're not one any more. It takes centuries to get over it.”
― Ben Elton, Blast from the Past

“To positively discriminate in favour of groups that have been negatively discriminated against in the past.”
― Ben Elton, Blast from the Past

“And through all that dreadful darkness she had remembered him. He who loved her. He who still loved her. Who would always love her.”
― Ben Elton, Two Brothers

“You're mugging old ladies every bit as much if you pinch their pension fund”
― Ben Elton, Meltdown

“A society sufficiently sophisticated to produce the internal combustion engine has not had the sophistication to develop cheap and efficient public transport?'
‘Yes, boss... it’s true. There’s hardly any buses, the trains are hopelessly underfunded, and hence the entire population is stuck in traffic”
― Ben Elton, Gridlock

“We've just lost our way, that's all. But what if you could give us a chance to do better? Just one chance? One single move in the great game of history? What's your best shot? What would you consider to be the greatest mistake in world history and, more to the point, what single thing would you do to prevent it?”
― Ben Elton, Time and Time Again

“The reactionary point of view was always so easy to put, the complex, radical argument always so easy to put down.”
― Ben Elton, Blast from the Past

“New York will always seem more real than anything Britain has to offer. It is strange that, although the majority of British people have never seen a skate-boarding body-popper, an exploding fire-hydrant, or anybody dunk a doughnut, these things seem infinitely more immediate and happening images than that jar of Horlicks which has stood in the cupboard for 40 years”
― Ben Elton, Gridlock

“It’s a curse to have a mind if it is illegal to use it. It’s a curse to have intelligence if you are forced to cloak it in a lifetime of wilful stupidity.”
― Ben Elton, Blind Faith

“Screw humanity. I don't give the whole stinking bunch of us more than a couple of generations and good riddance. The universe is better off without us.”
― Ben Elton, Time and Time Again

“Because they're twins. they've got each other, wolf. This is a tough town in a tough world. But no matter how tough it get - our boys will always have each other.”
― Ben Elton

“Time is not linear. It does not go along on a steady course like a road from London to York. It does not have a beginning and it does not have an end, nor is it the same to one person as it is to another, nor to two planets or a million stars. It is different in all circumstances. Because it is relative.”
― Ben Elton

“So far no one has claimed responsibility.”
― Ben Elton, Popcorn

“We prefer “survivor”.’ ‘But this particular woman is dead,’ Matlock pointed out. ‘Yes.’ ‘So “survivor” isn’t really an appropriate term.’ ‘I’m aware of that. What we need is a new term for survivors of assault who died.”
― Ben Elton, Identity Crisis

“She spoke loudly in order to be heard above the noise of personal communitainers that were thudding and banging all around them. Some people used earphones, some didn't, clearly believing that as many people as possible should be given the opportunity to appreciate their musical taste. That, combined with the mass leakage from the headsets, created a terrible din and even discreet private conversations had to be conducted at a yell.”
― Ben Elton, Blind Faith

“I see dull people as projects ... to be reformed”
― Ben Elton, Two Brothers

“Иногда лучше все оставить как есть. Время – не прялка. Время – пряжа.”
― Ben Elton, Time and Time Again