Jeremy Clarkson Quotes

Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that’s what gets you.

I’m sorry, but having an Aston Martin DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch.

Some say he’s a CIA experiment gone wrong, and that he only eats cheese. All we know is, he’s called the Stig.

You can’t have a proper midlife crisis in a French car.

Strap yourself in and feel the G-forces!

I love speed. I love fast cars. I love driving.

If you’re not prepared to crash, you’re not prepared to go fast.

I drive fast, I don’t worry about crashes.

I’m not a good driver. I just don’t crash.

A turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft happens, and you go faster.

When in doubt, flat out.

The thing about being immortal is that you have to live with it forever.

If you come across an animal that’s bleeding, just drive faster.

I’ve always said, ‘If one day I had a heart attack and the ambulance raced me to the hospital and on the way, was blocked by a Morris Marina MGB, I would be able to give at least 30 seconds on how to dismantle the car’s engine, remove it in less than 20 minutes and while still experiencing cardiac arrest or at the very least pass my driving test’.

If we were all driving Bugatti Veyrons, there’d be no traffic jams, cos everyone would dodge left at 200 mph.

Take everything you know about driving a normal car and forget it – you can’t apply that to a racing car. It’s a different world.

Do you want me to say something controversial? I can’t stand the Prius.

I don’t understand bus lanes. Why do poor people have to get to places quicker than I do?

I’m against rivers in general, because every one I’ve come across has tried to kill me.

The first time he ever went off the track, his car finished first and then rolled over at least six times.;

He’s a typical racing driver. The only thing he moans about is getting in the way of the bastard.

Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary… that’s what gets you.

I used to own a 1987, I think it was, Volvo 3

That was a fabulous car. It was f****** awful to drive, but from certain angles it looked quite pretty. And it was indestructible; it had a terrible engine but nothing would kill it. Eventually I sold it to a woman who phoned up after about four days and said: ‘Mr Clarkson, I’ve just crashed your car into a tree.’ But instead of saying ‘Oh, my God, are you alright?’ I found myself asking her whether the car was alright. She looked and said: ‘Yes, I think so.’ And I said: ‘Oh, thank God for that’, and put the phone down.

I’ve worked out that on my farm, my Aston Martin does 16 feet to the gallon.

I’ve had this dreadful pain in my left hip since Easter that I can’t seem to shake off.

Someone once asked me why I’m so bothered about racing lines and apexes and all that. ‘What the hell do you care,’ he said. ‘It’s not as though you’ll ever be a proper racing driver.’ I told him that if he challenged me at Monza and I turned up in a 4.2 R8, I’d so, so bet I could finish ahead.

Does it come with a fire extinguisher?

I’ve been driving a 4.2 R8 that’s worth about £150,000 for several days now. And there can’t be a single corner that I haven’t thought about going into. Hard. Because above anything, this car, probably because I’m driving it, really does feel like it’s a million dollars.

When I tested it, I genuinely thought I was going to die.

The Venom GT enters its very own lunatic realm at 150 mph.

The barrel sprint is proving to be something of a spectacle, namely because the Honda flies along like its tail is on fire while the Lexus makes more noise than my dog made last month as it kicked my tumble drier to pieces.

The next time Sir Benjamin of Kingsley calls and offers to pay me £19.95 for a 10-minute address to a small gathering of Saudi billionaires, I shall take the money with my right hand and slap him, very hard, with my left.

If you’re not driving a Subaru WRX, you’re either a bus driver or a podiatrist.

Some say he once threw a microwave oven at a tramp, and that long before anyone else he was cutting his trousers.

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on.

When it finally all arrives, you’re just a phlegm bag on wheels. You won’t be able to do anything.

Driving a Ferrari that’s 20 years old means you can afford to leave it in the car park without a valet, which is nice.

The Lotus is more fun to drive than an Aston Martin. It feels extraordinary; it provides a completely different sensation of speed. Plus, when you put your foot down in the tiny little Lotus, you just get the feeling the steering wheel’s gonna come off in your hands.

Me and cars are like women and football. I’ll always see myself sitting behind the wheel.

Beware the fury of a patient man. I’ve been patient for 40 years. I can wait a little longer.

The problem is that procrastination is a bit like masturbation: it’s all well and good, but at the end of the day, you’re only f*****g yourself.

The Atlantic is full of blotting paper. And the only thing the QE2 can navigate through that is Brussels sprouts.

I wandered into the woods and dismantled Jimmy’s car. A magnificent machine – a work of art, really. And yet, unlike a work of art, it’s useless when dead.

If he had an argument with his wife the night before, he would turn up and shoot the car’s doors off with a pneumatic drill.

A turbo is God’s way of telling you a four isn’t enough.

When a car company discontinues a model, it can only mean one thing: it wasn’t any good.

My first thoughts on buying a new car were ‘I should get a Lamborghini’, but then I thought, ‘hold on a minute, possibly the most famous Lamborghini ever was driven by an Italian who could only put it into 5th gear, and had no sense of direction or favourites in Scarface, so why don’t I get an Audi instead?’

You see materialism everywhere in Europe. That’s why you can’t get a big engined car in Europe – you’ll stuff the Alps with a big engine fetish. European law is to avoid being climate change monsters, and most middle-class European males in their 30s and 40s are more concerned about what their friends think, and so lie about the car they own.

I think if you come second in the 100m sprint at the Olympics, you’re rubbish. But the fact that he had themed the gymkhana around trying to stop a Frenchman from getting away, oh, I loved it.

I’ve never been more pleased to be fit to burst, than to be driving a V8 manual rear-wheel drive car in America.