Time flies like an arrow - but fruit flies like a banana.
Terry Wogan
Nobody really knows what they look like. The mirror shows you only what you want to see.
Age, they say, is only important if you're cheese. or a wine. They also say, if you are stuck behind one on a golf course, that a tree is 90 per cent air. How come, then, that you invariably send your ball crashing into the remaining 10 per cent?
There's more to life than passing exams, and paper qualifications can only take you so far. A lot depends on luck, and on being in the right place at the right time, which was certainly true in my case.
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.
Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it.
People who are successful should never forget that it's 90 per cent luck. You've got to be an eejit to be an egomaniac. I had my glory years - 'Blankety Blank,' the talk show, when I was winning every award going.
What used to be called 'good manners' is now regarded as mere affectation. Open a door for a young woman, and she's likely to call security.
BBC TV gets hold of an idea and beats it to death until we're all heartily sick of it. They buy people without thinking what they're going to do with them. It's the wrong way around. What they should be doing is employing really good ideas people to come up with good ideas.
I've always been the kind of person who leaves parties early to catch the last bus home.
All reality TV shows are a triumph of voyeurism. They choose contestants who are ill-suited and slightly freakish.
I try to swim for 30 minutes and walk for 30 minutes, because if I don't, my finely honed body will slip into its old ways.
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.
Most television could be presented by a dachshund. Radio can't, although there are a lot of dachshunds in there.
I've never stayed in a tent or a caravan in my life, and I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't see the point of going on holiday to enjoy less comfort than I have at home.
I will never do 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!' There are certain things you'll do that you have some control over, but you should do things that leave your fate in the hands of others, too.
They're still advertising the added health-giving advantages of vitamins in your daily diet, although it has long since been shown that you'd be better off eating Smarties.
If the present Mrs. Wogan has a fault - and I must tread carefully here - if she has a fault, this gem in the diadem of womanhood is a hoarder. She never throws anything out. Which may explain the longevity of our marriage.
You have to be aware of your own shortcomings. The main thing I try not to do is lose my temper. Doing live interviews on television, you learn not to say the first thing that comes into your head.
Just as you should never confuse the law with common justice, intelligence should not be confused with common sense. Some of the brightest people in the world have no idea how to cross the road.
I say to my children, the reason that marriage - and having children - is so important is that it stops you thinking about yourself. The way to happiness is to give yourself to others and to think of others before you think of yourself.
Nobody ever texts me, because they know what I'm like. I'm a constant frustration to my children because I never switch my mobile phone on. I only use it when I need to make a call or when I'm stuck somewhere or lost, then I switch it off again. I've never texted anyone in my life, and I'm not sure I even know how to.
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 was born an optimist, as I always say. If I wake up in the morning with a pain in my chest, I'll always assume it's indigestion. It will probably be the end of me! But it's true - that's the kind of person I am.
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.
I speak some French, Spanish, a little German and Gaelic.
I was brought up to do my duty. Not to be vain, not to shout from the rooftops about my virtues - to be modest and well-behaved. I'm totally wrong for show business.
Oh, I'm a great believer in the power of the pause. Radio is a bit brasher now. My style was slower. I just used to go in, open the microphone and say the first thing that came into my head.
A talk show is about having a look at a famous face, a bit of stand-up comedy, knockabout stuff - an interview is what Barbara Walters or Connie Chung does in the States, in-depth, done properly.
A couple of years before he died, I kissed my father goodbye. He said, 'Son, you haven't kissed me since you were a little boy.' It went straight to my heart, and I kissed him whenever I saw him after that, and my sons and I always kiss whenever we meet.
I have great fun with the Togs - Terry's Old Geezers and Gals. They're a group that formed around me over the years of my radio shows. They are loyal to me and I'm loyal to them, so I've been to their conventions - Leicester University gives us their campus.
I think if they wanted to get me to leave 'Children in Need,' they'd have to drag me off screaming. It's one thing that's so close to my heart, and I feel passionately about it. I gave up my radio show, with regret, but knowing I'd done it for a long time, the same with Eurovision. But 'Children in Need' is different.
A television chat show is light entertainment, so it is trivial by its very nature. It is hardly the place to get people to reveal their innermost thoughts. Then it becomes sensationalism, and you lower yourself to the level of the popular newspapers.
I spent my entire Irish Catholic youth in a constant state of guilt over imaginary sins. I learned that nothing is a sin as long as you don't take pleasure from it.
The BBC knew I was successful from early on, but they weren't sure why, and they still aren't sure. What I do has been unconventional from the beginning, so they've never been sure. It just works. It just does.
The BBC is the greatest broadcaster in the world. It's the standard that everyone measures themselves against. If we lose the BBC, it won't be quite as bad as losing the royal family, but an integral part of this country will have gone. But then, I'm an old guy.
Sadly, I can't avoid being 75. Like many people of my age, we are all heading towards the grim reaper, and I am clinging on. I just to have to sharpen my fingernails a little so that I can hang on for longer!
Treasure is the kind of thing you dig up... or bury! And when people say, 'Oh, he's an icon,' well, an icon is a very old painting hanging in a Russian church! If you want to say something, say something nice about me. Don't call me a national treasure.
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 not very good with cars. They rebel against me.
Da was a real fisherman. But it wasn't the catch that mattered, it was the skill of the cast, the preparation of the flies. I often think my inability to prepare, my desire to get going, are a direct result of watching my father making all those painstaking preparations before he cast his line.
I'm terribly shallow. I don't miss things once I have stopped doing them, and I don't miss people when I stop seeing them.
I'm so proud to do it - there's nothing else I do that compares to 'Children in Need.'
All of us are private to ourselves. Nobody ever really knows anybody else. Everybody in the world keeps something to themselves.
I get a lot of letters from people saying, 'How do I get into radio, how do I get into telly?' and I wish there was an answer, because there's no ladder. There are no parameters. You've just got to go in wherever you can, make the tea, and slowly make your way up the ladder.
I have a happy temperament: a bit like 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.'
People are not impressed by watching interviewees cry. People recognize chat shows with personalities as the trivial things that they are. They're not designed to be deep. Quite frankly, people in show business don't stand up to in-depth scrutiny.
My parents spent an awful lot of money sending me to the best possible schools, and I came out of my exams and thought, 'I don't really want to do a degree.' I did philosophy with the Jesuits for about a year, and then I joined a bank. While I was there, I saw an ad in an Irish paper for radio announcers.
I don't do a lot when I'm in Gascony. I swim and play the odd game of golf, but mainly I sit around. We're set an hour-and-a-half from the Pyrenees and an hour-and-a-half from the Bay of Biscay, so we get plenty of storms. But we're surrounded by vines and sunflowers - it's lovely.
I'm on the university board in Limerick, so I visit the city often.
