Quotes from James May

The bicycle might just be the greatest of all inventions. It empowers the human machine, and with no input beyond perhaps a trendy isotonic health drink in a brightly coloured bottle at an inflated price.

A car isn't a classic just because it's old. To be a classic, a car has to tell us something of its time.

I felt that needed to be addressed: the idea that anything a man tries to do properly or thoroughly is dismissed as either metrosexual or OCD. But why can't you be practical and artistic at the same time, which was considered perfectly normal in the Renaissance?

If you are a man, I feel that practicality should always trump fashion.

As more consumers demand less sugar, the food and beverage manufacturers will eventually come into line with what the consumers want.

The three of us may be reunited on screen, we may go our separate ways, or we may disappear from the television altogether and each assume a place, alone, in the corner of a pub where any unsuspecting passing drinker who strays into an exclusion zone studiously avoided by the locals will be subjected to a predictable 'I used to be on TV' routine.

There are very few things in real life on which I agree with Jeremy Clarkson, surprisingly few for people who have to make a TV show together. But that's part of what makes it work.

When we were kids, if somebody said, 'What did you watch last night?' you would have said, 'BBC Two,' but now they'll just say, 'My mobile.'

I don't play a lot of games. I play flight simulators, mostly.

I always found it hard to motivate myself.

I don't want Jeremy Clarkson anywhere near my shed or my toolbox or my piano. He's interested in fashionable restaurants and celebrity gossip - I'm not interested in those.

I'm quite happy to laugh at Argentina's obsession with ham and cheese, but not, you know, delicate bits of their history.

I know there have been some catastrophically unpopular programmes on television over the years. Has it ever got to the point where the only person still interested in what's happening is the person who's on the telly?

In 1988, before I'd written a word for a car magazine or stood in front of a camera, I was a subeditor on 'The Engineer.'

I have never stormed off over money or contracts. I am paid quite well by 'Top Gear.' I am pretty happy, and I have never seen Richard Hammond storm off, either.

I think women, especially, are bored of blokes being useless.

I'm a big user of digital technology, but I don't find it beautiful.

I'm not soppy-romantic. I don't buy Valentine's cards or any of that cheesy crap.

As far as I can work out, no-one really loses out.

Not being part of the BBC with 'Top Gear' any more does pain me, because it's an organisation I approve of.

Never has a material been as overrated as leather.

'Normal bloke' is my style.

Would the Element be a car for people who like hip-hop, or for people waiting for a hip-op?

Some cyclists are complete prats, obviously, but so are some drivers.