Terry Wogan

“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 Jesuit...”

“What used to be called 'good manners' is now regarded as mere affectation. Open a door for a young woman, and she's likely to call security.”

“Time flies like an arrow - but fruit flies like a banana.”

“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 r...”

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

“I've never stayed in a tent or a caravan in my life, and I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't see the point of going on holiday to enjoy less comfort than I have at home.”

“Sadly, I can't avoid being 75. Like many people of my age, we are all heading towards the grim reaper, and I am clinging on. I just to have to sharpen my fingernails a little so that I can h...”

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

“All reality TV shows are a triumph of voyeurism. They choose contestants who are ill-suited and slightly freakish.”

“Age, they say, is only important if you're cheese. or a wine. They also say, if you are stuck behind one on a golf course, that a tree is 90 per cent air. How come, then, that you invariably...”

“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 '...”

“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 win...”

“BBC TV gets hold of an idea and beats it to death until we're all heartily sick of it. They buy people without thinking what they're going to do with them. It's the wrong way around. What th...”

“There's more to life than passing exams, and paper qualifications can only take you so far. A lot depends on luck, and on being in the right place at the right time, which was certainly true...”

“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.”

“Da was a real fisherman. But it wasn't the catch that mattered, it was the skill of the cast, the preparation of the flies. I often think my inability to prepare, my desire to get going, are...”

“I speak some French, Spanish, a little German and Gaelic.”

“If the present Mrs. Wogan has a fault - and I must tread carefully here - if she has a fault, this gem in the diadem of womanhood is a hoarder. She never throws anything out. Which may expla...”

“People are not impressed by watching interviewees cry. People recognize chat shows with personalities as the trivial things that they are. They're not designed to be deep. Quite frankly, peo...”

“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 prop...”