Quotes from Eddie the Eagle

Life is good, and I'm happy, and I don't know that it would be as good if I'd been the winner in Calgary.

I actually had huge problems with my glasses steaming up all the time. I had to train very carefully around the limitations caused by wearing them.

I wore No. 24 at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada - one bib on the back and one on the front - and those are like my medals.

We were not rich by any means. My dad was a plasterer and worked long hours - I hardly ever saw him when I was growing up. He had always gone to work before I woke up, and usually, I would be in bed before he came home.

I have a big chin. Thick glasses.

The births of my two girls were wonderful - I felt proud to have helped bring new life into this world.

Both parents were hard-working and made me work for my pocket money by doing household chores. That taught me the value of money and gave me a strong work ethic.

When I started competing, I was so broke that I had to tie my helmet with a piece of string. On one jump, the string snapped, and my helmet carried on farther than I did. I may have been the first ski jumper ever beaten by his gear.

I want to be recognised as exemplifying the Olympic spirit - one of the last true Olympians.

It's not been a bad life, and I do know that I could never have been a world champion. All I ever wanted to do was be the best I could with what I had, which wasn't very much, really. And that's what I think I did.

I won't win a World Cup, and I won't win the Olympics, but I'm sure I can compete with the best, and that's what I want to show.

I think the only bones I haven't broken are my shoulder, hip, and thigh.

I've never really let any kind of negative things affect me, generally. I would take a positive out of the most desperately horrible situation.

Once I was making £10,000 for an hour's work, but there have been years where my promotional stuff has brought in only a few hundred.

There are so many world-class athletes who are great at their sport, but they're so boring. They don't talk, and they can't be interviewed very well.

I've fractured my skull twice, damaged a kidney, snapped a cruciate ligament in my knee, and broken all manner of bones, including my jaw. And I count myself very lucky it hasn't been worse!

The worst thing that happened to me as a child was seeing my brother get pushed into a cement mixer.

Ski jumping is just 10 per cent physical, 90 per cent mental. Some people can't do that. It's not just to do with the fear at the top. It takes a lot of guts to go off the top, but it takes 100 times more courage to jump off the end.

I always know that people will only remember me for my efforts in Calgary which, I must admit, seem without doubt to have kept the name alive. But I honestly love law and really hope it can take off for me. I'm going for it.

Where is it written that the Olympics are only for winners?

No matter how many people say you can't do something, use that as inspiration to prove them wrong.

In 1988, I earned something like £700,000. Yeah! I was earning 10 grand an hour opening shopping centres. Yeah! The most I earned in one day was 65 grand. I opened the Alton Towers fun ride in the morning, did a commercial in the afternoon and an appearance at a nightclub in the evening. Sixty-five grand in one day!

After my ski jumping career finished, I went back to school to study law, and now I travel between five to 20 times a year doing after-dinner speaking, motivational talks, appearances, openings, TV and radio shows.

People say I wasn't a real athlete, but I trained hard. It's possible to take something seriously and still have fun at it, you know.