Top 77 Eddie the Eagle Quotes

I’m a positive person who likes to have fun and get the best out of every day.

Life is good, and I’m happy, and I don’t know that it would be as good if I’d been the winner in Calgary.

I’ve got two daughters of my own, and I loved watching my children grow up.

I can’t explain my popularity. I suppose I’m just an ordinary bloke, and a lot of people see a little bit of Eddie in themselves.

After my ski jumping career finished, I went back to school to study law, and now I travel between five to 20 times a year doing after-dinner speaking, motivational talks, appearances, openings, TV and radio shows.

My dad supported me by working extra hours and giving me a little bit of extra money. He bought my camper van for me so I could go into Europe and drive from competition to competition.

I was a true amateur and embodied what the Olympic spirit is all about. To me, competing was all that mattered.

Americans are very much ‘Win! Win! Win!’ In England, we don’t give a fig whether you win. It’s great if you do, but we appreciate those who don’t.

For me, I was never someone who wanted to hold on to the celebrity image.

In the right circumstances, terror is good. It makes you focus.

It takes a lot of guts to jump. If people criticise, I would give them a set of skis and say, ‘Do it yourself then.’

I was like the George Clooney of the ski business.

I have never, ever considered myself a failure.

On the street, I’ll hear, ‘You made the Olympics for me,’ or ‘I love what you represented.’ Only occasionally is it, ‘You were a flop, an also-ran, a loser.’

I made my dream come true despite all the obstacles – no money, no training, no skis, no snow.

I don’t like bullies or selfishness or people who are grumpy.

I’ve had an operation on my jaw – I don’t have the big jaw anymore – and I’ve also had an operation on my eyes.

Some people thought I wasn’t taking the sport seriously because I was always laughing and having fun, but I loved my skiing, I loved my jumping, and I thought, ‘Well, why not have a smile on my face when I’m doing something that I really, really love doing,’ and that’s how I was.

I’ve fractured my skull twice, damaged a kidney, snapped a cruciate ligament in my knee, and broken all manner of bones, including my jaw. And I count myself very lucky it hasn’t been worse!

If you have got a dream and you’ve got ambition, then go for it. You know, unless you try, you’ll never know.

I was living on a loaf of bread a week.

I won’t win a World Cup, and I won’t win the Olympics, but I’m sure I can compete with the best, and that’s what I want to show.

I think the only bones I haven’t broken are my shoulder, hip, and thigh.

I’m not frightened of death.

I’ve never really let any kind of negative things affect me, generally. I would take a positive out of the most desperately horrible situation.

Most people should be given a chance to compete in the Olympic Games.

I want my life to move on. On the other hand, I can’t say no to offers, not when I’m getting £50,000 a year to be Eddie the Eagle.

I always know that people will only remember me for my efforts in Calgary which, I must admit, seem without doubt to have kept the name alive. But I honestly love law and really hope it can take off for me. I’m going for it.

When I trained with the Japanese team, there we’d be singing Oasis songs at the top of our voices at the top of the jumps. People thought we were daft.

I wore No. 24 at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada – one bib on the back and one on the front – and those are like my medals.

Sport on TV is so boring.

I have a big chin. Thick glasses.

Once I was making £10,000 for an hour’s work, but there have been years where my promotional stuff has brought in only a few hundred.

Ski jumping is just 10 per cent physical, 90 per cent mental. Some people can’t do that. It’s not just to do with the fear at the top. It takes a lot of guts to go off the top, but it takes 100 times more courage to jump off the end.

The failures are the people who never get off their bums.

The press portrayed me as a joke and a clown.

The FIS, BSF, and British Olympic Association have been trying to stop me competing internationally. They don’t like the fact that I laugh and have fun and entertain the crowd.

You can’t have Alan Partridge as Eddie the Eagle!

I like nothing more than walking down a country lane or along a mountain path – it’s not proof that there is anything bigger than ourselves, but I feel very much at peace.

My brother is 18 months older than me, and my sister is three years younger. I’m the middle one. I was born in Cheltenham, and that’s where I grew up.

When I plummeted into infamy in the Calgary Olympics, I never thought that a film would be made about my life.

When I was a kid, people kept saying, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that,’ and I wanted to prove them wrong.

I did a tandem parachute jump when I opened a golf course in Atlanta, Georgia. I jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet to land on the first tee, and then I played a couple of holes with golfer Arnold Palmer. That was brilliant.

It had been a dream of mine to go to an Olympic Games since I was about seven years old. I didn’t know I’d do it ski jumping, but that’s how it turned out.

I don’t want to look like Michael Jackson.

In my case, there are only two kinds of hope – Bob Hope and no hope.

I’m the Eagle: I can fly.

My dentist said my teeth were wearing away at the back because I couldn’t bite. My top jaw was broken and brought forward, and my bottom jaw was broken and put back.

I had no money, no training facilities, no snow, no ski jumps, no trainer, but I still managed to ski jump for my country – and getting there was my gold medal.

When I started competing, I was so broke that I had to tie my helmet with a piece of string. On one jump, the string snapped, and my helmet carried on farther than I did. I may have been the first ski jumper ever beaten by his gear.

I broke my jaw jumping, and I broke my back and my neck in the downhill. This is normal for me.

That James Bond movie? The one where Bond skis off a cliff, shucks his skis, and parachutes to the ground? That’s for me. That’s what I want to be. A stuntman in a Bond movie.

I wish they’d build a ski jump at the Grand Canyon; it’d be fantastic.

I want to prove to the skeptics that I’m not a clown. I’m very serious about what I do. I want to be a good ski jumper who has a sense of humor.

You have to take the rough with the smooth – that’s what ski-jumping is all about. You always expect the worst.

I don’t regard myself as an entertainer. I don’t think that’s where my talents lie. It always feels a bit uncomfortable.

I receive kindness every day. I love to smile when I’m out and about, and if someone smiles back, which happens about half the time, I think that’s an act of kindness every couple of minutes in my day.

Where is it written that the Olympics are only for winners?

I want to be recognised as exemplifying the Olympic spirit – one of the last true Olympians.

As a child, I was always getting into risky situations with the potential to hurt myself, but mum and dad never stopped me doing what I wanted to do, and they assumed that if I fell and hurt myself, I would learn from that and maybe not do it again.

A lot of people think I’m really outgoing and confident, but I’m not. I’d much rather sit in a corner and read my book and my paper. I’m quite happy with my own company.

I was a latchkey kid. Every afternoon, I would walk home from school, let myself in, make myself a banana buttie, and watch telly until Mum came home.

People still think I’m a bit of a buffoon – not really an athlete.

It’s nice and restful, plastering.

I was an expert skier who set his sights on going to the 1988 Olympics in Canada to represent Britain, and went from novice ramps to the 120-metre jump in five months. That’s possible only with utter focus.

I liked being Eddie the Eagle, but I also like being Michael Edwards, plasterer and general builder.

There are so many world-class athletes who are great at their sport, but they’re so boring. They don’t talk, and they can’t be interviewed very well.

I actually had huge problems with my glasses steaming up all the time. I had to train very carefully around the limitations caused by wearing them.

Getting to the Olympic Games was my gold medal.

Maybe I am a little bit of a clown, but I am also a serious sportsman.

You’ve got to think life can give you some bad knocks; no matter how hard you’re knocked, you’ve got to get up.

I would never think of asking a girl out on the High Street or the disco or at school. But on the ski slope, I would chat to all the girls.

I try to keep fit, as it’s better for both skiing and plastering. I cycle and jog and I dance a lot – Ceroc, a form of modern jive.

Both parents were hard-working and made me work for my pocket money by doing household chores. That taught me the value of money and gave me a strong work ethic.