Being attracted to my own sex was as much part of who I was as being short or blonde or drawn to the library, but I was made to grow up feeling 'other.' Most books, films - even advertisements - didn't reflect how I felt, and I often watched the world from the outside.

Sandi Toksvig

One of my life's watchwords is 'hyggelig.' It's an untranslatable Danish term for getting together with friends and family and sitting around in a cosy atmosphere with nice food and wine and candles.

Sandi Toksvig

Life Food Family

I've had a surprising number of near-death experiences: I was nearly blown up by a landmine in Sudan; I was stranded on the Zambezi river at night; I was bucked off a rodeo horse in Arizona and had to be airlifted to hospital; and, worst of all, I once ate a Pot Noodle.

Sandi Toksvig

Experience Death Worst

You can go anywhere in the world, and people's faces light up when they put delicious food in their mouths.

Sandi Toksvig

Food You World

My dad died of a massive heart attack when he was 59, as he didn't look after himself.

Sandi Toksvig

Art T Self

I am always slightly mystified by the whole 'Snow White' story. What are the chances of coming across that many diminutive men living in one house in the woods?

Sandi Toksvig

Men Chance Woods

My wife and I drove across America following the Oregon Trail, which the pioneers once passed along.

Sandi Toksvig

Wing Win Wife

I'm absolutely obsessed with boxing.

Sandi Toksvig

Wit T Ox

I would not be able to keep going at the pace that I do if I had continued at the weight that I was. I feel so much better; I eat better. I sleep better. I actually enjoy exercise.

Sandi Toksvig

Would Weight Weigh

No matter how far I travel from Denmark, I still miss the food, so ScandiKitchen in Great Titchfield Street in central London is an essential part of my life.

Sandi Toksvig

Travel Life Great

I decided that instead of making jokes about politics, I need to take part in it, and therefore, I can't make jokes and participate.

Sandi Toksvig

Politics Art Therefore

When I came out in September 1994, I was, as far as I know, the only out lesbian in British public life.

Sandi Toksvig

Life Tis T

Food is an international language, an expression of love.

Sandi Toksvig

Love Food Age

It was actually having a son made me think about feminism.

Sandi Toksvig

Think Thin T

Do you know there were two pilots made for 'Have I Got News For You' before the series started two decades ago: one hosted by Angus Deayton and one hosted by me. But I was told that they couldn't have a woman in charge of the news.

Sandi Toksvig

Art You Woman

Being attracted to my own sex was as much part of who I was as being short or blonde or drawn to the library, but I was made to grow up feeling 'other.' Most books, films - even advertisements - didn't reflect how I felt, and I often watched the world from the outside.

Sandi Toksvig

Men Art World

I'm 57 years old, and I host a quiz show every single day. I got asked in a recent interview, did I feel that hosting a quiz show helps keep my brain sharp? And I asked - would you ask Stephen Fry that question, who is exactly the same age as me? Somehow, I'm managing to stand up and stay cogent despite my incredible age.

Sandi Toksvig

Age You Years

Language is ever on the move, and most days, I check out the 'Urban Dictionary' where anyone can invent a new and useful word or phrase.

Sandi Toksvig

Age Word Where

You have to stand for the things that you believe in. You have to stay strong inside.

Sandi Toksvig

You Things Thing

'The News Quiz' is one of the things I am proudest of in my professional life.

Sandi Toksvig

Life Things Thing

I dislike hatred, offence, unkindness.

Sandi Toksvig

Unkind UN T

I don't know a lot about mountaineering. I once went walking in the Lake District with the legendary climber Chris Bonington and had to have emergency physio afterwards to regain sensation in my thighs.

Sandi Toksvig

I think communication should be fun and that we should all worry less about how we say things and more about what we say.

Sandi Toksvig

Sitting on a plastic chair at night listening to the sea lapping below while sipping a cold beer is about as good as life gets.

Sandi Toksvig

I'm ashamed to say, I've done hideous pen portraits of people I don't like in my novels. And they'll say, 'Oh, that person was hideous,' and I'm nodding, and I'm thinking, 'It's you, you fool!'

Sandi Toksvig

What I think is if the world is in some difficulty - about climate change, about economics - then we had better make sure that 100 per cent of every brain available on the planet is working at full pelt to try to sort these things out.

Sandi Toksvig

I'd love to be a joiner or a wood turner.

Sandi Toksvig

English is full of Scandinavian words. Margate, Ramsgate, Billingsgate, any town with a 'gate' on it takes their suffix from the Danish word 'gade' which simply means 'street.'

Sandi Toksvig

I know we don't all follow in the family footsteps, but you are, I suppose, more likely to consider becoming a butcher if you have spent your childhood watching a parent debone a pig.

Sandi Toksvig

Endless books claim that the brains of men and women are wired differently. They have titles such as 'Why Men Don't Iron' and set out to convince us that women are somehow biologically suited to getting the creases out of clothes while men peruse maps.

Sandi Toksvig

Because of my fighting for LGBT rights, I have seen the possibility of change. And that gives me heart to believe that it is possible to effect change.

Sandi Toksvig

I will try anything that doesn't involve a leotard.

Sandi Toksvig

I certainly wouldn't want to be a Mini Me of any of the people whose footsteps I've followed in.

Sandi Toksvig

I hope I don't have an ego.

Sandi Toksvig

I love 'Teach Yourself' books. I bought an old weaving loom and had no time for classes, but one 'Teach Yourself' later, and my bobbin is flying.

Sandi Toksvig

I'm political in the sense that there's much to be done, but I'm apolitical in the sense that I don't think there's a party that represents anything I believe in.

Sandi Toksvig

I have a son and two daughters, and I care equally about all three of them, and I want the world to be a better place for all of them.

Sandi Toksvig

I went to a physiotherapist, and she said something to me no one has ever said: 'Sandi, you have plantar fasciitis, because you're fat.' I left and sat in my car shaking. She'd told me the truth, which no one else had. It was painful, but I needed to hear it.

Sandi Toksvig

I had tried every diet out there - I would lose weight for a bit, then put it back on again.

Sandi Toksvig

I've played the Royal Albert Hall to 8,500 people, and there wasn't a nerve in my body.

Sandi Toksvig

When my three children were little, I took them to Rome. On our way to our destination, we went to see the Colosseum and returned to the car to find everything had been stolen. Trying to buy everything for a week, including clothing for three small, very tired children, was a low point in my life.

Sandi Toksvig

My ambition is to stop showing off. I'd love to be a tweedy academic. I'd be happy living in a croft. I like making jam. So why am I a semi-public figure?

Sandi Toksvig

I don't care if you're from the right or left of politics - there are core objectives we can all agree on: equal pay, equal representation on the media, equal representation at board level, politics, an end to domestic violence.

Sandi Toksvig

I think kids are in your temporary care, and that they probably arrive with pretty much the personalities they're going to have. I grew up in a perfectly traditional family and turned out how I did. I'm not sure there's much that the family can do except lots of love and lots of care and lots of chances for them to develop the best they can.

Sandi Toksvig

At my worst, I was a size 22, and at that size, you can't go down the high street and buy yourself things that make you feel good. Your shopping options are limited in a way they aren't when you are a size 12.

Sandi Toksvig

You want a kitchen put in, I'm your girl. I'm very handy, and I love a practical challenge. I fit all the stereotypes of the lesbian with power tools.

Sandi Toksvig

There are panel shows that struggle to get women on, and that's because the women feel marginalised and stupid and in the edit are often seen just laughing at the boys and not saying anything at all even though I know for a fact in the recording they were clever. I'm not shy at speaking up, but even I, on those shows, am silenced.

Sandi Toksvig

There was a really long period of time when, if the newspapers ever referred to me, even if I was talking about, I don't know, cake making, they would put 'lesbian Sandi Toksvig.'

Sandi Toksvig

I wish I was fitter.

Sandi Toksvig

My life won't have full quality until we achieve equality for all.

Sandi Toksvig

I get in a temper with inanimate objects. I can't bear plastic. I do get in a complete rage with something that's been shrink-wrapped.

Sandi Toksvig