Quotes from Terry Wogan

I don't like seeing myself on screen. Whenever I see or hear myself, I think, 'What is that eejet doing now?' I'm in the wrong business. I don't like the limelight.

Go out and face the world secure in the knowledge that everybody else thinks they are better looking than they are as well.

My parents spent an awful lot of money sending me to the best possible schools, and I came out of my exams and thought, 'I don't really want to do a degree.' I did philosophy with the Jesuits for about a year, and then I joined a bank. While I was there, I saw an ad in an Irish paper for radio announcers.

I've always been the kind of person who leaves parties early to catch the last bus home.

I'm on the university board in Limerick, so I visit the city often.

They're still advertising the added health-giving advantages of vitamins in your daily diet, although it has long since been shown that you'd be better off eating Smarties.

Just as the England football manager starts with bells and flags and balloons and ends up reviled, so do prime ministers. Tony Blair - is there anyone more despised now? Gordon Brown - all right, nobody voted for him but, you know... just think of any of them. Margaret Thatcher. John Major. Steve McLaren. Fabio Capello.

We'll watch 'Britain's Got Talent,' 'X Factor,' 'Come Dine with Me' and 'Masterchef.' But we don't watch 'Big Brother,' which is rubbish. I certainly won't be tuning into the new series of 'Celebrity Big Brother' either. I think it's awful, exploitative and vulgar.

I was born an optimist, as I always say. If I wake up in the morning with a pain in my chest, I'll always assume it's indigestion. It will probably be the end of me! But it's true - that's the kind of person I am.

I'd walked away from 'Come Dancing' and gave 'Blankety Blank' the elbow when I felt the public had had enough. But I didn't follow my instinct to escape from 'Wogan,' and was persuaded to continue for another two years. I kind of regret that.

My life has been a happy accident. Anybody who succeeds in anything should count their lucky stars, because that's the biggest element. It's not hard work; it's not necessarily talent.

I don't think there's a public in the world who respond like the British to a call for charity.

There's nothing to be said for being famous. It's a pain. You can't be rude to people - it's inexcusable not to be nice. Anyway, it's not in my nature. I was trained to be nice.

I'm so proud to do it - there's nothing else I do that compares to 'Children in Need.'

I try to swim for 30 minutes and walk for 30 minutes, because if I don't, my finely honed body will slip into its old ways.

Places like India can give you a real culture shock because of the poverty you see, and it brings you up sharply.

A talk show is about having a look at a famous face, a bit of stand-up comedy, knockabout stuff - an interview is what Barbara Walters or Connie Chung does in the States, in-depth, done properly.

People who are successful should never forget that it's 90 per cent luck. You've got to be an eejit to be an egomaniac. I had my glory years - 'Blankety Blank,' the talk show, when I was winning every award going.

I'm never going to write a book like Anthony Sher did, you know, 'The Broadcaster Prepares.' I'm only talking to myself. I'd have liked to be a writer, or a journalist, but if things don't come easy to me I don't do them. I think if you're always thinking how difficult something is, you shouldn't be doing it.

Most television could be presented by a dachshund. Radio can't, although there are a lot of dachshunds in there.

I get a lot of letters from people saying, 'How do I get into radio, how do I get into telly?' and I wish there was an answer, because there's no ladder. There are no parameters. You've just got to go in wherever you can, make the tea, and slowly make your way up the ladder.

Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it.

I have a happy temperament: a bit like 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.'

I will never do 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!' There are certain things you'll do that you have some control over, but you should do things that leave your fate in the hands of others, too.