Ben Elton

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

“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 think it is very difficult to legislate for morality.”

“I don't know what people who I've never met think about me. Some have written horrible things, some have written nice things - but I'm proud of the fact I've remained close to everyone I've ever worked with.”

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

“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.”

“If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not; then marriages would be truly made in heaven.”

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

“Artists don't create society, they reflect it”

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“My parents were secular. I am an atheist.”

“You didn't wake up, your dreams just changed gear.”

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

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

“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!”