“A car isn’t a classic just because it’s old. To be a classic, a car has to tell us something of its time.”
― James May
“Someone once told me that I was 12 inside. The only thing 12-year-olds crave is more Lego. Lego is fun; it’s therapeutic. It’s a beautiful sensation when you click the pieces together.”
― James May
“Me, I’m a lesbian: I find women fascinating.”
― James May
“I love a bicycle, and I haven’t been without at least one since I was three years old.”
― James May
“The bicycle might just be the greatest of all inventions. It empowers the human machine, and with no input beyond perhaps a trendy isotonic health drink in a brightly coloured bottle at an inflated price.”
― James May
“I don’t play a lot of games. I play flight simulators, mostly.”
― James May
“When I get into a car – any car – I still find it amazing that I’m allowed to drive it away.”
― James May
“The shirt thing just started one day when I bought one with a really interesting pattern, and people laughed at it, so I thought, ‘I’ll keep buying daft shirts with flowers on.’”
― James May
“The decline of practical skills, some of them very day-to-day, among a generation of British men is very worrying. They can’t put up a shelf, wire a plug, countersink a screw, iron a shirt. They believe it’s endearing and cute to be useless, whereas I think it’s boring, and everyone’s getting sick of it.”
― James May
“Modern man is in crisis. He has degenerated from the redoubtable pillar he became through centuries of refinement and slipped resignedly into the popular depiction of himself as a witless under-achiever, incapable of looking after himself or those around him.”
― James May
“The three of us may be reunited on screen, we may go our separate ways, or we may disappear from the television altogether and each assume a place, alone, in the corner of a pub where any unsuspecting passing drinker who strays into an exclusion zone studiously avoided by the locals will be subjected to a predictable ‘I used to be on TV’ routine.”
― James May
“I’m in favour of the old roles being blurred. The old division at school where the boys did metalwork and woodwork and the girls did needlework and domestic science is awful, really – and I’m glad it’s gone.”
― James May
“When it comes to watches, it’s ironic that you can spend thousands on an exquisitely made mechanical watch, and yet it will be less accurate than a five-quid digital bought from a petrol station.”
― James May
“Men think that not being able to wire a plug somehow makes them more creative or intellectual. It just makes them morons.”
― James May
“I woke up one morning and realised that one of the problems with being a middle-aged man – of being a man in general – is the tyranny of fashion.”
― James May
“There’s a lot of politics in television and a lot of in-fighting and all that sort of stuff, but in the end, we are purveyors of entertainment. Viewers are not really bogged down in who’s doing what and who hates who and who’s doing best in the ratings. They watch television to be entertained.”
― James May
“The Amazon lot are perfectly reasonable, level-headed people who just want to make TV programmes. I don’t think they are the enemy of the BBC or the other way round. It’s not a war; these things can coexist. We can have Amazon and Netflix and the BBC and BT Sport, and people can make choices. That’s what modern life is all about.”
― James May
“It’s healthy to have two car shows. Why not? The viewer gets twice as much car show to watch.”
― James May
“I’d quite like to film in Central Park. I think we have asked, but we’re not allowed to.”
― James May
“Boilersuits are used by everybody from pilots in the army to racing drivers to people who clean your drains. The one piece overall is what all males secretly desire.”
― James May
“I’m not a big film buff; I like watching films, but I tend to forget them.”
― James May
“I’ve never thought about marriage or children.”
― James May
“I’m a great believer in the principle of try it and work it out. If a gadget is designed well, you can easily work out how to use it. But if you can’t, it isn’t shameful to read the instructions.”
― James May
“I hate the idea of people nicking my stuff, but in all honesty, I’m pretty well off. If a genuinely desperate man on his last gasp nicks my coat from the pub on a freezing night, well, he’s welcome to it. It’ll change his life. Mine’s only inconvenienced by having to buy another one.”
― James May
“I don’t have a worry about women because I keep reading that not only are they better at school, they are now better at parking, better at navigating… we know that women are good at everything.”
― James May
“I’ve never quite trusted water; I don’t think it’s entirely healthy.”
― James May
“I think any carmaker that had a brain and was looking very long-term would think about ‘Personalised Transport Solutions’ – which may not be a car.”
― James May
“If you are a man, I feel that practicality should always trump fashion.”
― James May
“I’m a big user of digital technology, but I don’t find it beautiful.”
― James May
“There are very few things in real life on which I agree with Jeremy Clarkson, surprisingly few for people who have to make a TV show together. But that’s part of what makes it work.”
― James May
“I’ve got a new pair of trainers. That’s the only difference in my life since I started working for Amazon.”
― James May
“I remember thinking, at the end of 2015 on New Year’s Eve, I’m actually quite glad to see the back of that one. 2015 was a bit complicated and had some very traumatic bits in it.”
― James May
“I was a car journalist when I started on ‘Top Gear.’ It was all about cars. And then it all spun out of all control, and we turned into figures of ridicule to keep the viewers happy. It’s a fair deal, I suppose.”
― James May
“I don’t know what a gazillion is.”
― James May
“Jeremy can’t do anything. I’ve never discovered anything he can do. I mean, he can drive a car round a track pretty well, but he wouldn’t be able to light a fire.”
― James May
“A lot of television assumes the viewer is a bit daft, and I don’t think they are.”
― James May
“Watching people move to nice music is very pleasant.”
― James May
“I do worry about breaking things – things that don’t belong to me.”
― James May
“They’re pretty accurate, the clocks in mobile phones.”
― James May
“Despite some of the stories that have gone around, I’ve never had a big, flouncey strop about how much I’m paid. Considering I have a pretty interesting life out of making telly, I’m really paid quite well for it. So I’m not complaining.”
― James May
“I don’t have any quarrel with the BBC.”
― James May
“I’m conflicted because I like being in deserts. I find them sort of cleansing, but there’s another part of me that hates dust. And I particularly hate dust in cars, so it’s a huge conflict going on there.”
― James May
“I got into it just thinking, ‘Oh, television, maybe I’ll have a go at that.’ I could’ve never imagined that it would get to this.”
― James May
“’Top Gear”s popularity is a complete mystery to me. Maybe it’s because it’s still a car programme, but it’s turned into a distorted world view from three men; a world view through the windscreen.”
― James May
“Jeremy Clarkson wants to become a farmer – he’s bought a field – Hammond wants to open a supermarket, and I’d like to spend my days owning a shoe shop.”
― James May
“I find the history of toys very interesting on an academic level – they’re very much products of their time, just like paintings and furniture tell us about their time.”
― James May
“In ‘Top Gear,’ everything goes wrong because you have Jeremy Clarkson, so any practical activity ends in a pile of bits.”
― James May
“In 1988, before I’d written a word for a car magazine or stood in front of a camera, I was a subeditor on ‘The Engineer.’”
― James May
“All cars have a natural gait, a speed at which they’re happiest. The Corniche is perfect at around 65-70mph. I did a ton in it once, which was completely horrible. Apparently, it’ll reach 120mph, but not with me in it.”
― James May
“There’s this perception that I’ve got this huge collection of old cars. I don’t.”
― James May
“I think women, especially, are bored of blokes being useless.”
― James May
“There’s a great deal of poetry in working out how things work, cutting bits of metal, trying to mend stuff.”
― James May
“I felt that needed to be addressed: the idea that anything a man tries to do properly or thoroughly is dismissed as either metrosexual or OCD. But why can’t you be practical and artistic at the same time, which was considered perfectly normal in the Renaissance?”
― James May
“I can’t stand the need to be fashionable.”
― James May
“’Normal bloke’ is my style.”
― James May
“Deep down inside, I am lazy.”
― James May
“I can’t make a house homely. My house just looks like a garage or a shed. I’m not untidy, but it just looks so uninviting.”
― James May
“It would be a shame if the BBC didn’t exist.”
― James May
“When we were kids, if somebody said, ‘What did you watch last night?’ you would have said, ‘BBC Two,’ but now they’ll just say, ‘My mobile.’”
― James May
“We’ve always liked the word ‘chump’, and it’s quite nearly our initials – Clarkson, Hammond, and May Productions.”
― James May
“I’m not soppy-romantic. I don’t buy Valentine’s cards or any of that cheesy crap.”
― James May
“The greatest luxury now in being reasonably well-off – overlooking the Ferrari and the aeroplane – is that I can always go for a curry without worrying if I can afford it.”
― James May
“I’m not beholden to anyone. I’m not waiting for a pension or a carriage clock.”
― James May
“I always said it was a privilege to end up on the television. It wasn’t my ambition; I fell into editing magazines and writing about cars, and then I ended up on the telly.”
― James May
“It’s fairly well known that we all hate each other to some extent. ‘Top Gear’ has worked because of a combination of camaraderie and mutual dislike. That’s actually the magic.”
― James May
“Not being part of the BBC with ‘Top Gear’ any more does pain me, because it’s an organisation I approve of.”
― James May
“I know there have been some catastrophically unpopular programmes on television over the years. Has it ever got to the point where the only person still interested in what’s happening is the person who’s on the telly?”
― James May
“I very briefly had a microwave oven that I quickly gave away, because I could never work out what they do better than a regular oven.”
― James May
“If it were possible – and I hope it will be some day – I’d like some sort of anti-gravity travel capsule: some way to travel around the without the need for jets and wings and so on.”
― James May
“Richard Hammond is a reasonably fit bloke who looks after himself. Me and Jeremy aren’t.”
― James May
“I think there are bigger problems in the world than Jeremy Clarkson.”
― James May
“I don’t want Jeremy Clarkson anywhere near my shed or my toolbox or my piano. He’s interested in fashionable restaurants and celebrity gossip – I’m not interested in those.”
― James May
“I am actually a perfectly capable modern man who can cook, clean, wash, and find my way to places, but nobody believes it.”
― James May
“You have to be a bit mad and conceited to go on television.”
― James May
“I suppose I could do ‘The Reassembler’ at 80. But it would be a terrible cliche.”
― James May
“I don’t look like Susan Boyle!”
― James May
“I’m not very ambitious, sorry… I don’t get up and think, ‘Today, I shall achieve greatness.’ It’s more, ‘Today I might have Marmite on my toast.’”
― James May
“Our ‘Top Gear’ characters are based on our own characters, if exaggerated and cartoonified. We try not to be completely different to who we are, because you couldn’t carry it off in the long run.”
― James May
“I think the astute viewer can recognise I am the proper bloke, because I have a toolbox and can put things back together, and I can quote W. B. Yeats and Alfred Lord Tennyson.”
― James May
“I don’t like to think I am a celebrity; I am just a bloke on the telly.”
― James May
“It would be a bloody tough call to do ‘Top Gear’ without Jeremy. That would be a bit of a daft idea.”
― James May
“Justice should not admit a public’s thirst for pure revenge.”
― James May
“I have never stormed off over money or contracts. I am paid quite well by ‘Top Gear.’ I am pretty happy, and I have never seen Richard Hammond storm off, either.”
― James May
“I always wanted to be a teacher.”
― James May
“I can’t see Jeremy Clarkson having very many serious problems in his working life in the long run.”
― James May
“I’m only a freelance TV presenter and, in many ways, it’s all just been a massive fluke.”
― James May
“We’d become lazy with ‘Top Gear,’ doing six or seven shows a series.”
― James May
“It’s actually very difficult to come up with a new name for something that hasn’t already been bagged by someone else, unless you call your new show ‘Shubbley-Doobley-Woobley’ or something like that!”
― James May
“It does cost a lot of money to make high-quality TV in exotic locations. I know everyone thinks we’ve been given a massive sack full of money and gone off and bought Lamborghinis and gone off for lunch, but it isn’t actually like that.”
― James May
“I’m quite happy to laugh at Argentina’s obsession with ham and cheese, but not, you know, delicate bits of their history.”
― James May
“I hope we’re not barred from Argentina – I’d quite like to go back for another ham and cheese sandwich.”
― James May
“Some cyclists are complete prats, obviously, but so are some drivers.”
― James May
“Bicycles should not be insured or registered, and cycling proficiency should not be subject to a test. That’s just weak-kneed nonsense from people who believe the world can be cured with paperwork.”
― James May
“I’m on television far too much. I’m not sure why. I’ve watched myself on TV from time to time. It’s painful.”
― James May
“I’ve never wanted to be on television for the sake of it, I suppose because I’m not one of life’s natural presenters; I’m not an actor.”
― James May
“I always found it hard to motivate myself.”
― James May
“Look – think very hard about the car you want. Then buy that one, brand new.”
― James May
“The V50 is a genuinely great car, even as a diesel.”
― James May
“Nice girls at school whose fathers owned a Volvo were unapproachable and probably condemned to spinsterhood for all time, simply because no one had the courage to advance up the drive.”
― James May
“Never has a material been as overrated as leather.”
― James May
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