Humor & Life Quote by Ben Elton

A taxi stand is Elton's miniature stage for a larger social truth: anticipation is a mild form of captivity. The line works because it treats a banal scene like an anthropological crisis, then punctures it with the deflating punchline "only a taxi". That "only" is doing the heavy lifting. It exposes how quickly people will surrender spontaneity when a clock is ticking, even for something trivial. Waiting turns strangers into temporary competitors and co-conspirators at once, and both roles make genuine conversation feel risky.

The subtext is less about small talk and more about status management. In a queue, every sentence is potentially a misstep: too friendly and you look needy; too aloof and you look arrogant; ask a question and you might invite the kind of intimacy that can't be finished before your number comes up. The shared objective (get the cab) narrows the bandwidth of what's socially permissible. It's not that people lack things to say; it's that the situation makes speech feel instrumental. You talk only to negotiate position, confirm the rules, or complain about the system. "Natural conversation" becomes a luxury you can't quite afford when the environment has turned everyone into a player in a small, silent game.

Elton, a comedian steeped in observational satire, is also taking aim at modern life as a series of micro-waits: phone lines, checkout lines, loading screens. The joke lands because we recognize ourselves in it: the way impatience drains charisma, and how shared inconvenience doesn't automatically produce community. Sometimes it just produces a room full of people performing politeness while privately counting seconds.