Top 60 James May Quotes

We’d become lazy with ‘Top Gear,’ doing six or seven shows a series.

I very briefly had a microwave oven that I quickly gave away, because I could never work out what they do better than a regular oven.

I always found it hard to motivate myself.

I’m quite happy to laugh at Argentina’s obsession with ham and cheese, but not, you know, delicate bits of their history.

I’ve never wanted to be on television for the sake of it, I suppose because I’m not one of life’s natural presenters; I’m not an actor.

I always said it was a privilege to end up on the television. It wasn’t my ambition; I fell into editing magazines and writing about cars, and then I ended up on the telly.

The bicycle might just be the greatest of all inventions. It empowers the human machine, and with no input beyond perhaps a trendy isotonic health drink in a brightly coloured bottle at an inflated price.

All cars have a natural gait, a speed at which they’re happiest. The Corniche is perfect at around 65-70mph. I did a ton in it once, which was completely horrible. Apparently, it’ll reach 120mph, but not with me in it.

You have to be a bit mad and conceited to go on television.

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

Our ‘Top Gear’ characters are based on our own characters, if exaggerated and cartoonified. We try not to be completely different to who we are, because you couldn’t carry it off in the long run.

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

Someone once told me that I was 12 inside. The only thing 12-year-olds crave is more Lego. Lego is fun; it’s therapeutic. It’s a beautiful sensation when you click the pieces together.

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’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.

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.

In ‘Top Gear,’ everything goes wrong because you have Jeremy Clarkson, so any practical activity ends in a pile of bits.

The V50 is a genuinely great car, even as a diesel.

I find the history of toys very interesting on an academic level – they’re very much products of their time, just like paintings and furniture tell us about their time.

I’ve never quite trusted water; I don’t think it’s entirely healthy.

I hope we’re not barred from Argentina – I’d quite like to go back for another ham and cheese sandwich.

I don’t play a lot of games. I play flight simulators, mostly.

There’s a lot of politics in television and a lot of in-fighting and all that sort of stuff, but in the end, we are purveyors of entertainment. Viewers are not really bogged down in who’s doing what and who hates who and who’s doing best in the ratings. They watch television to be entertained.

It’s actually very difficult to come up with a new name for something that hasn’t already been bagged by someone else, unless you call your new show ‘Shubbley-Doobley-Woobley’ or something like that!

When I get into a car – any car – I still find it amazing that I’m allowed to drive it away.

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 Clarkson wants to become a farmer – he’s bought a field – Hammond wants to open a supermarket, and I’d like to spend my days owning a shoe shop.

I think women, especially, are bored of blokes being useless.

I’m not a big film buff; I like watching films, but I tend to forget them.

The decline of practical skills, some of them very day-to-day, among a generation of British men is very worrying. They can’t put up a shelf, wire a plug, countersink a screw, iron a shirt. They believe it’s endearing and cute to be useless, whereas I think it’s boring, and everyone’s getting sick of it.

I can’t see Jeremy Clarkson having very many serious problems in his working life in the long run.

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 got into it just thinking, ‘Oh, television, maybe I’ll have a go at that.’ I could’ve never imagined that it would get to this.

I’m a big user of digital technology, but I don’t find it beautiful.

It would be a bloody tough call to do ‘Top Gear’ without Jeremy. That would be a bit of a daft idea.

Justice should not admit a public’s thirst for pure revenge.

I remember thinking, at the end of 2015 on New Year’s Eve, I’m actually quite glad to see the back of that one. 2015 was a bit complicated and had some very traumatic bits in it.

I’m not beholden to anyone. I’m not waiting for a pension or a carriage clock.

If it were possible – and I hope it will be some day – I’d like some sort of anti-gravity travel capsule: some way to travel around the without the need for jets and wings and so on.

They’re pretty accurate, the clocks in mobile phones.

I always wanted to be a teacher.

I’d quite like to film in Central Park. I think we have asked, but we’re not allowed to.

I don’t know what a gazillion is.

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.

I’ve got a new pair of trainers. That’s the only difference in my life since I started working for Amazon.

I don’t want Jeremy Clarkson anywhere near my shed or my toolbox or my piano. He’s interested in fashionable restaurants and celebrity gossip – I’m not interested in those.

I think any carmaker that had a brain and was looking very long-term would think about ‘Personalised Transport Solutions’ – which may not be a car.

Me, I’m a lesbian: I find women fascinating.

‘Top Gear”s popularity is a complete mystery to me. Maybe it’s because it’s still a car programme, but it’s turned into a distorted world view from three men; a world view through the windscreen.

I’m not very ambitious, sorry… I don’t get up and think, ‘Today, I shall achieve greatness.’ It’s more, ‘Today I might have Marmite on my toast.’

I don’t like to think I am a celebrity; I am just a bloke on the telly.

There’s this perception that I’ve got this huge collection of old cars. I don’t.

Despite some of the stories that have gone around, I’ve never had a big, flouncey strop about how much I’m paid. Considering I have a pretty interesting life out of making telly, I’m really paid quite well for it. So I’m not complaining.

I’m only a freelance TV presenter and, in many ways, it’s all just been a massive fluke.

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.

Boilersuits are used by everybody from pilots in the army to racing drivers to people who clean your drains. The one piece overall is what all males secretly desire.

I don’t have any quarrel with the BBC.

There are very few things in real life on which I agree with Jeremy Clarkson, surprisingly few for people who have to make a TV show together. But that’s part of what makes it work.

I felt that needed to be addressed: the idea that anything a man tries to do properly or thoroughly is dismissed as either metrosexual or OCD. But why can’t you be practical and artistic at the same time, which was considered perfectly normal in the Renaissance?

Watching people move to nice music is very pleasant.