Quotes from Ben Elton


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We've all got to look at ourselves, start with yourself, that's all you can do. I believe that we can act responsibly as a group, it's just that there are vested interests telling us not to bother.


I loved writing 'Two Brothers' more than anything else I have written. It's the first book I've written that I've always known I wanted to write. Having said that, it also kept me awake at nights.


There are lots of things I could have done for the money, but I've made a great living doing the things I want to do.


I don't consider myself Jewish. I am half-Jewish by race but not through my mother.


No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.


My advice to anyone adapting a novel is that once they've read it and learnt to understand it, then they must throw it away and never look at it again!


Yes, OK, farty is a silly word. I wish I'd never used it. I'm 34. Perhaps it was a word for my 20s.


The earth only has so much bounty to offer and inventing ever larger and more notional prices for that bounty does not change its real value.


People who get through life dependent on other people's possessions are always the first to lecture you on how little possessions count.


I think trying to be cool is the worst possible ambition - and I have never suffered from it.


Comedy will always be central to what I do, it's just an instinct for me, but I am a writer and always have been.


I try hard not to preach, but I get carried away, which is a mistake, but it's a risk worth running.


I'm lucky because the strongest emotion I have ever felt is being in love, and that definitely informs my writing.


If I did things for the money, I'd have done adverts in the 1980s, when I was hot enough to be offered them, and 'Police Academy 6,' which I was asked to write.


Sympathy for victims is always counter-balanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them.


I'm easy to work with, not a pushover, but I respond to criticism and find it inspiring.


I think it is very difficult to legislate for morality.


I find the fact that billionaires are quoted as if the fact that they are billionaires gives them some kind of wisdom is outrageous.


And roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is my personal signature dish.


I exercise hard and the reason I do is so that I can earn the things I like to consume.