Quotes from James May

I'm only a freelance TV presenter and, in many ways, it's all just been a massive fluke.

The V50 is a genuinely great car, even as a diesel.

Nothing in this life worth achieving is easy, nor is it impossible.

Never sacrifice your family. They are the most important thing in life.

We've always liked the word 'chump', and it's quite nearly our initials - Clarkson, Hammond, and May Productions.

I got into it just thinking, 'Oh, television, maybe I'll have a go at that.' I could've never imagined that it would get to this.

Despite some of the stories that have gone around, I've never had a big, flouncey strop about how much I'm paid. Considering I have a pretty interesting life out of making telly, I'm really paid quite well for it. So I'm not complaining.

I always said it was a privilege to end up on the television. It wasn't my ambition; I fell into editing magazines and writing about cars, and then I ended up on the telly.

I don't like to think I am a celebrity; I am just a bloke on the telly.

I can't stand the need to be fashionable.

Nice girls at school whose fathers owned a Volvo were unapproachable and probably condemned to spinsterhood for all time, simply because no one had the courage to advance up the drive.

It's healthy to have two car shows. Why not? The viewer gets twice as much car show to watch.

Bicycles should not be insured or registered, and cycling proficiency should not be subject to a test. That's just weak-kneed nonsense from people who believe the world can be cured with paperwork.

If it were possible - and I hope it will be some day - I'd like some sort of anti-gravity travel capsule: some way to travel around the without the need for jets and wings and so on.

I don't have any quarrel with the BBC.

Boilersuits are used by everybody from pilots in the army to racing drivers to people who clean your drains. The one piece overall is what all males secretly desire.

Our 'Top Gear' characters are based on our own characters, if exaggerated and cartoonified. We try not to be completely different to who we are, because you couldn't carry it off in the long run.

We'd become lazy with 'Top Gear,' doing six or seven shows a series.

Men think that not being able to wire a plug somehow makes them more creative or intellectual. It just makes them morons.

I woke up one morning and realised that one of the problems with being a middle-aged man - of being a man in general - is the tyranny of fashion.

Me, I'm a lesbian: I find women fascinating.

Justice should not admit a public's thirst for pure revenge.

I hope we're not barred from Argentina - I'd quite like to go back for another ham and cheese sandwich.

I'm in favour of the old roles being blurred. The old division at school where the boys did metalwork and woodwork and the girls did needlework and domestic science is awful, really - and I'm glad it's gone.