Ben Elton Quotes
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.
Quotes to Explore
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Watching a whole cluster of friends, and my own mother, die over quite a short space of time convinced me that purely materialist 'explanations' for our mysterious human existence simply won't do - on an intellectual level.
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The best relationship is one that does not foster too much independence nor too much dependence, but exists in the healthy interdependence zone.
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I'm a big advocate of revisions, of living with something for a month and then realizing what needs changing, what was lazy, what could be better.
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So, you know, parenting is a very intimate and amazing experience and one of the best experiences of my life.
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I'm the biggest geek of all. Adventure, fantasy, comic books - I can't get enough.
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It's so necessary to try and record the cultural memory of people. To set it down for generations to come. To better understand where we are headed. The problem is, a good portion of what we choose to remember is about willed forgetting. Which we all do, I believe, to protect ourselves from what is too difficult.
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Anytime you have a tight race and you lose, it's not pleasant.
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The novel moves like all the arts. It's transforming itself all the time.
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I have an enormous metabolism, so I'm lucky.
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All the reasons that have made software so successful are beginning to happen with hardware. So much can be done so quickly, prototyped so rapidly, and the costs are so low.
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The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions.
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I think I have a better sense of my weaknesses - being self-important, selfish and having a big ego probably triggers all the other stuff. I can see myself more clearly.
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We are the recipients of scientific method. We can each be a creative and active part of it if we so desire.
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I like writers who seem to write because they have to. You get the feeling of this burning desire to tell a story. I find it in Peter Carey, Nicola Barker, Ali Smith and David Foster Wallace.
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Whenever I visited China in the past, the relationships always felt superficial; there was no time where I felt those moments of conflict and delight that make you feel close to another person. But since I started touring there in 2004, I would always collaborate with local musicians, and that opened up a new level of intimacy.
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Great research universities around the world are visible not just through their quality graduates but as knowledge creators and technology developers.
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Growing up in Nashville, especially in a music business family, means growing up with knowledge that seems like common sense until later in life when you realize people spend thousands of dollars a semester trying to learn or pretending to learn while looking for some intern job on music row.
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Why do I always choose the shopping cart with the squeaky wheel? Is it my bad luck, or are all the carts dysfunctional?
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Technology has saved us money in some circumstances, but it has really afforded us the ability to cover stories from locations we might not have been able to in the past.
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Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
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You want to believe in leaders, really believe in leaders. You want what they are saying to be truthful, and you want to trust them.
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I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.
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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.
