James May

“I'm on television far too much. I'm not sure why. I've watched myself on TV from time to time. It's painful.”

“Jeremy can't do anything. I've never discovered anything he can do. I mean, he can drive a car round a track pretty well, but he wouldn't be able to light a fire.”

“I don't look like Susan Boyle!”

“In 1988, before I'd written a word for a car magazine or stood in front of a camera, I was a subeditor on 'The Engineer.'”

“I've never quite trusted water; I don't think it's entirely healthy.”

“Never has a material been as overrated as leather.”

“Men think that not being able to wire a plug somehow makes them more creative or intellectual. It just makes them morons.”

“I don't have a worry about women because I keep reading that not only are they better at school, they are now better at parking, better at navigating... we know that women are good at everything.”

“Look - think very hard about the car you want. Then buy that one, brand new.”

“I've never thought about marriage or children.”

“It's fairly well known that we all hate each other to some extent. 'Top Gear' has worked because of a combination of camaraderie and mutual dislike. That's actually the magic.”

“I'm a great believer in the principle of try it and work it out. If a gadget is designed well, you can easily work out how to use it. But if you can't, it isn't shameful to read the instructions.”

“The greatest luxury now in being reasonably well-off - overlooking the Ferrari and the aeroplane - is that I can always go for a curry without worrying if I can afford it.”

“I think there are bigger problems in the world than Jeremy Clarkson.”

“Justice should not admit a public's thirst for pure revenge.”

“A car isn't a classic just because it's old. To be a classic, a car has to tell us something of its time.”

“Not being part of the BBC with 'Top Gear' any more does pain me, because it's an organisation I approve of.”

“Modern man is in crisis. He has degenerated from the redoubtable pillar he became through centuries of refinement and slipped resignedly into the popular depiction of himself as a witless under-achiever, incapable of looking after himself or those around him.”

“I'm in favour of the old roles being blurred. The old division at school where the boys did metalwork and woodwork and the girls did needlework and domestic science is awful, really - and I'm glad it's gone.”

“The three of us may be reunited on screen, we may go our separate ways, or we may disappear from the television altogether and each assume a place, alone, in the corner of a pub where any unsuspecting passing drinker who strays into an exclusion zone studiously avoided by the locals will be subjected to a predictable 'I used to be on TV' routine.”