Quotes from Ben Elliot

I don't believe that saying things because you feel they are what people want to hear is the right way to be in any part of your life.

A lot of my work is about developing relationships with corporate partners such as Jaguar and Diageo.

I've always been fascinated by India and its color and vibrancy. I worked in Madhya Pradesh in the Kanha National Game reserve before university, and it is probably the most intoxicating country I have ever visited.

What goes around comes around in business, and it's better to help people out rather than bill them every time you speak to them.

I think people might say I'm a bit of a sucker for punishment.

Since I travel to the four corners of this planet for work, I don't need sun holidays or that kind of thing.

For me, a stay at the Uma Paro with Pilates every morning is a perfect escape.

In the same way I am addicted to puddings - the sweeter the better - I have become addicted to the daily routines my Pilates and Gyrotonic guru, Nada, puts me through.

In my heart and soul, I am a West Country man, and ideally, my weekends are spent there.

When the truth does not get printed, damage is done.

Since childhood, I have been a cricket fanatic.

For me, life is not about gold taps and marble all over the place.

I mainly read histories and biographies, but I'm also a big fan of Graham Swift and Thomas Hardy.

The way I choose to live my own life rates time and space as real luxuries.

I'm a creature of habit and tend to favour small, traditional English businesses.

I knew Quintessentially was a success when my father, who does a lot of business in Beirut, introduced himself to somebody and they said, 'Oh, do you know Ben Elliot? I'd really like to meet him.' I remember him ringing me up, really annoyed.

I definitely like sorting stuff out, and I have the enthusiasm to try and help.

Art is the ultimate luxury good, but one that can make you think, give a you a blast of beauty and enhance your life. Even if the work's made of plasticine.

My obsession with eating out partly comes from having spent 10 long years at English boarding schools in the 1980s, where food was pretty low on the list.

I don't set out to be connected. My business has allowed me to meet lots of interesting people, some of whom have become friends; but you can't force it. This terrible word - 'networking' - I really hate.

I'm not going to complain to New Yorkers about working too hard.

I eat out three times a day most days of the year. This is no big deal to most New Yorkers, and it is not something I am necessarily proud of - it's simply the nature of my itinerant life.

It's not marriage that I crave. Many of my friends who have married are pretty miserable. Within a year and a half, most of them are either unhappy or divorced.

My father instilled in me an attitude that you couldn't really enjoy yourself unless you had done something to deserve it. So, my childhood was spent working on farms or local shops or, when I got older, in banks.