Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Eltonis an English comedian, author, playwright, actor and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on series such as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 15 novels and written the musicals We Will Rock Youand Love Never Dies, the sequel to The...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth3 May 1959
people littles firsts
People who get through life dependent on other people's possessions are always the first to lecture you on how little possessions count.
believe looks groups
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.
race opera lasts
The Germans are a cruel race. Their operas last for six hours and they have no word for fluffy.
inspiring criticism easy
I'm easy to work with, not a pushover, but I respond to criticism and find it inspiring.
book ignorance keys
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.
leader trying looks
Leaders should never, ever try to look cool - that's for dictators
writing being-in-love lucky
I'm lucky because the strongest emotion I have ever felt is being in love, and that definitely informs my writing.
people waiting natural
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.
lying jealous unrequited-love
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.
old-lady fund bits
You're mugging old ladies every bit as much if you pinch their pension fund
beautiful real imagination
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
sympathy opposites feelings
Sympathy for victims is always counter-balanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them.
want done made
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.
brother book writing
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.