“I'd walked away from 'Come Dancing' and gave 'Blankety Blank' the elbow when I felt the public had had enough. But I didn't follow my instinct to escape from 'Wogan,' and was persuaded to continue for another two years. I kind of regret that.”
“I'm never going to write a book like Anthony Sher did, you know, 'The Broadcaster Prepares.' I'm only talking to myself. I'd have liked to be a writer, or a journalist, but if things don't come easy to me I don't do them. I think if you're always thinking how difficult something is, you shouldn't be doing it.”
“I've always had an unsentimental view. I don't think the BBC is my auntie. I worked there for years, and you learn that they don't love you for yourself. They'll use you as long as you're popular. You shouldn't wait until it starts to wane. It can sometimes end badly.”
“I've never wanted to drive a car fast for the sake of it. I mean, I like nice cars. I've got the Bentley, I've had a Lotus, I've had a Rolls-Royce and a few Jaguars, including an E-type. But I'm not somebody for driving tremendously fast.”
“I've no patience for people who say they never watch television. It's a great way to keep in touch with popular culture, and it's important that children can relate to what their schoolmates are watching.”
“I've seen my fair share of drama over the years of Children In Need. I had a close brush with mortality in 2009 when a chain collapsed from the studio rigging. I was in mid-spout to camera when I heard an enormous crash behind me - a ton of steel had come hurtling down and smashed to the ground a few feet away.”
“I've told my family to tell me when I start missing a beat, before I realise it myself. Everything I do is ad-lib. I don't rehearse anything. I live on my wits, and I have to be as sharp as I can be. It's inevitable with the passing of time that sharpness will move along. But I hope my family will say: 'You are slowing down, you old fool!'”
“It's only a matter of time before it all starts to fall apart, before things start to fall off. Short legs, long body. The kind of person who in the Middle Ages would come up over the hill on his horse, and they'd say, 'Get Wogan,' and I'd be there with my shield, the first to die.”
“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 right, nobody voted for him but, you know... just think of any of them. Margaret Thatcher. John Major. Steve McLaren. Fabio Capello.”
“My father was always slightly bemused by my success. Although he knew that I had reasonable intelligence, he always thought that I was a little bit lazy.”