Bruce Forsyth

“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.”

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

“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.”

“My biggest regret is that my mother didn't see me walk on to that London Palladium stage, being the star she always wanted me to be. But I always say that when she reached Heaven, she had a word with a few agents.”

“It gets harder every day to get out of bed. I don't feel like it loads of the time. It is only my exercise routine which wakes me up.”

“I have no plans to rock myself to sleep in my bath chair yet.”

“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.”

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

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

“Ambition can take the place of everything - even sex.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“It may be an old cliche, but I think true love will last; it has no end. But finding the right person is a very difficult thing.”

“When I was in the business as a young performer, it was a recognised fact that when you got to 60 you were out, because there'd be a new crop of comics coming up all the time, every 10 years or so.”

“Little did I know that there's nothing more competitive in the world than a professional ballroom dancer. They are as competitive as Olympic athletes.”

“I love getting on You Tube to look at the old comics. I am in my element seeing guys like Jack Benny and Phil Silvers give interviews.”

“Puerto Rico is one of those places you can be as quiet or as crazy as you want, because there's so much nightlife. I have to take the craziness carefully.”

“You can only be as good as your audience. Sometimes you can be as bad as your audience, but you have to remember you can never be better than them.”

“Lots of people come up to me and call me Sir Bruce now. Interviewers call me Sir with every question, but I never make a point of making people call me Sir. It doesn't matter to me, though; it was a great honour to be knighted. I'm very proud of it.”