Richard Simmons

“When you're feeling down, sad, lonely, negative, you don't want to take care of yourself - and the weight problem and the diabetic problem and the heart attack and stroke problems and high cholesterol set in.”

“Yeah, but I do call them back and follow up. Most people talk at overweight people, I talk with them.”

“Truthfully, everyone knows how to eat right. They know the difference between oatmeal and a jelly cream doughnut. They know how to walk. Everyone has this in their brain. When I started, we didn't have all this knowledge.”

“I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.”

“I start phone calls at 4 A.M. to cheer people up. The housebound, people in the hospital. People who, after decades, still can't get over what happened 10 or 15 years ago.”

“My persona has always been what a man was never supposed to be. Outrageous, gregarious, crazy, silly, funny.”

“Number one, like yourself. Number two, you have to eat healthy. And number three, you've got to squeeze your buns. That's my formula.”

“My parents always told me to be myself. I was always funny and silly as a kid. And I would always make them laugh. And they always told me to dream big and follow those dreams.”

“I could be hit by a Sara Lee truck tomorrow. Which is not a bad way of going: 'Richard Simmons Found in a Freeway in Pound Cake and Fudge, With a Smile on His Face.' Let's face it. We don't know anything.”

“No one is perfect... absolutely no one. Like precious stones, we have a few flaws, but why focus on that? Focus on what you like about yourself, and that will bring you happiness and peace.”

“I'm a real paradox. Because I'm a very serious person, and I take my work very seriously. But I wrap it up in a court jester and a clown and make people laugh and make them feel good about themselves.”

“There are sacrifices you have to make. I don't have a lot to offer one person. I have a lot to offer to a lot of people.”

“I don't have to teach anymore, I don't have to work anymore, God has been really good to me.”

“I started my own class for people like me who can't find any place else to go.”

“Most workouts are way too aggressive. Thousands of lunges wear out the body.”

“A kid who moves is a kid who learns.”

“How do you get motivated? By knowing your worth. Americans do not know how worthy they are. You deserve to be healthy, but a lot of times, people have, as childs been told - as a children been told that they're no good, that they're never going to be anything else.”

“Right now many schools have no recess. Most schools have no PE.”

“When I go to teach, that's not my workout. It's my show. I'm 134 pounds - I'm a teeny thing. I work out 11/2 hours a day and eat 1,600 calories. I can't stray because I have to fit into these Dolfin shorts!”

“I'll tell you who makes me laugh, in a good way, and I'd love to have a date with her: if I could just have a salad with Lady Gaga? This would be my - I would almost probably faint.”