Quotes from Time and Time Again

Ben Elton ·  386 pages

Rating: (6.5K votes)


“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, quote from Time and Time Again


“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, quote from Time and Time Again


“Professor Sengupta had the self-satisfied habit common to many academics of pretending an intellectual equality with his audience in order to happily demonstrate his own superiority.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again


“В глубине души люди хотят костра и серы. Они мечтают о жестком мстительном Боге, который повелевает и карает за непослушание.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again


“Австро-Венгерская империя? Ей и без того хватало забот – разобраться бы, на каких языках говорить в собственном парламенте.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again



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


“The massive machine bore down on them. Nearly fourteen feet long and six wide, it seemed to completely fill the bridge. Almost a ton and a half of wood, glass, rubber, brass and steel, a monster, roaring and trumpeting as it approached its kill, the great shining black fender arches framing its huge goggling eyes. The thrusting tusks of its sprung-leaf suspension threatened to skewer any soft flesh and young bone that lay in its path. Black smoke billowed from its rear. Sparks spat from behind its grille. No dragon of ancient legend could have seemed more terrifying or more deadly.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again


“The classic private bitterness of the public zealot. A man who wanted to take out his own inadequacy on other people. And”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again


About the author

Ben Elton
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date May 3, 1959
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“Who is Mr. Jasper?"
Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle, and my music-master."
"You do not love him?"
"Ugh!" She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror.
"You know that he loves you?"
"O, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging to her new resource. "Don't tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her.
"Try to tell me more about it, darling."
"Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while, and stay with me afterwards."
"My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way."
"He has never spoken to me about - that. Never."
"What has he done?"
"He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than ever."
"What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?"
"I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is."
"And was this all, to-night?"
"This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me - who am so much afraid of him - courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself.”
― Charles Dickens, quote from The Mystery of Edwin Drood


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