Quotes from Bruce Forsyth

If I go out one night, I must stay in the next. It's the same with my golf. If I play one day, I don't play the next. I try to pace myself.

I met my darling wife Wilnelia in 1980 when we were on the judging panel for the Miss World contest at the Royal Albert Hall. With two ex-wives and five daughters, I thought I wouldn't be involved with anyone for a long time - if ever. Winnie was so gorgeous, my jaw dropped - and it's a big jaw to drop.

Ambition can take the place of everything - even sex.

My father earned every penny he had, and I would have loved to have bought him a Rolls-Royce because his whole life was cars. Sadly, he didn't live to see the day when I could have done that for him, which still hurts.

When a performer doesn't get nervous, that is when you have to give up.

Not working is bad for you. It is my drug, it gives me a high; most performers will tell you that. And there is nothing like the high that an audience gives you.

I can tell by the way somebody walks if they can dance or not. Just by the rhythm.

I've always been a family entertainer. Every show I have done has been suitable for any age - parents never need to worry that, if they pop out of the room, I'll say anything untoward.

Probably more than anybody else, I loved Nat 'King' Cole as a performer - not only his singing but his piano playing. Whenever he had a new record come out, I'd get it and try to learn how he was playing. And he was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.

Once you've experienced the warmth of an audience, the achievement of getting your first laugh, and entertaining them, singing or playing piano, it just keeps it all going.

On stage, I think I'm 35. Working takes over my whole body and I become a younger man - that's why I won't stop.

Although I'm predominantly known for game-shows, I do prefer to be known as a performer.

No one - apart from my agent, perhaps - should leave one of my shows in tears.

There are enough tears in any child's life; we certainly don't need to add to them in the name of entertainment.

I hate the term 'arm candy.' But, look, a woman's figure is a beautiful thing, and if she has shapely legs, then she should show them off, because men love to see that. Not just heterosexual men - gay men like to see a woman in her beauty and the shape of her.

If I couldn't move, I don't know what I would do. That would be terrifying for me; I don't know how I'd cope with that.

A round of golf is the ideal antidote to stress.

When I married Wilnelia, one of the first things I wanted to know about Puerto Rico was the quality of the golf courses.

Television is great but for me, as a performer, nothing compares to a live theatre show.

It's frightening, the way life speeds up. When you're at school, time can't go fast enough.

When I was a child, life felt so slow because all I wanted to do was get into show business. Each day seemed like a year, but when you get older, years pass like minutes. I wish there was a tape recorder where we could just slow our lives down.

The secret to a happy marriage is if you can be at peace with someone within four walls, if you are content because the one you love is near to you, either upstairs or downstairs, or in the same room, and you feel that warmth that you don't find very often, then that is what love is all about.

I don't want to grow old gracefully. I want to put up a bit of a fight.

It's important for a dancer to wear very tight underpants. I used to feel a bit exposed if I wasn't being held up in the right place.