I have a big chin. Thick glasses.

People really aren't interested in the way I look. It's my personality they like.

I don't want to look like Michael Jackson.

Some people thought I was bringing the sport down. I don't think so. I was the best and only jumper my country had.

If you are in your sport for your country, you should be able to go to the Olympic Games and represent your sport for your country bringing people together in the interests of sport. It's a fantastic Olympic ideal, and I uphold it as much as I can.

I travelled the world because of the way people saw me at the Olympics.

I was exemplifying the Olympian who took up a challenge as a sportsman, without a trainer, in a country without mountains and without snow. And, inside of two years, I was representing my country.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

We were not rich by any means. My dad was a plasterer and worked long hours - I hardly ever saw him when I was growing up. He had always gone to work before I woke up, and usually, I would be in bed before he came home.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I was living on a loaf of bread a week.

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.

The births of my two girls were wonderful - I felt proud to have helped bring new life into this world.

I've hated poetry ever since I was at school. I include Shakespeare in that. I don't understand the obsession with him!

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.

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.

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.

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.

When people make fun, it doesn't bother me. I've always enjoyed a laugh.

I think because I'm so naturally happy and unaffected and open, people thought I didn't take the jumping seriously. You're up that high, believe me - you take it very seriously.

People say I wasn't a real athlete, but I trained hard. It's possible to take something seriously and still have fun at it, you know.

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.

Sport on TV is so boring.

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!

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.

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

It's not been a bad life, and I do know that I could never have been a world champion. All I ever wanted to do was be the best I could with what I had, which wasn't very much, really. And that's what I think I did.

I was like the George Clooney of the ski business.

I was the best ski jumper in the United Kingdom.

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 always say my first job is my building trade. The rest comes and goes.

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.

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

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.

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.

My mum was wonderful.

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'm not frightened of death.

The press portrayed me as a joke and a clown.

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