Jeremy Clarkson
81 quotes
Biography
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English television presenter, journalist, author and farmer who is best known for hosting the motoring television programmes Top Gear (2002–2015) and The Grand Tour (2016–2024) alongside Richard Hammond and James May. He hosts the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (2018–present) and its spin-off Millionaire Hot Seat (2026–present), and stars in the farming documentary series Clarkson's Farm (2021–present).
"I was never allowed to play with guns when I was a child. While various friends were able to scamper around the woods with their Johnny Sevens, I had to make do with an old twig. And convincing an eight-year-old he was dead simply because I'd pointed a piece of larch his way was not quite as easy as you might imagine."
"The first thing that will strike you as odd in Japan is how polite everyone is. Quite apart from the neverending bowing, they have obsequiousness down to an art that even the Chinese haven't mastered."
"Funnily enough, Daihatsu are one of the better interior stylists. God knows how they do it."
"The Alfa Romeo GTV6 had the worst gearbox I've ever encountered, and the worst driving position and the worst record for reliability. Nevertheless, I bought one. I knew it was a hopeless basket case but I'd become smitten by the noise its engine made: a rumble in the jungle at low revs and almost an eerie howl as it neared the red line. I would put up with the massive bouts of truculence, the deep discomfort and the absurdly heavy steering because no car before, or since, has ever made such a glorious sound. It was music to the enthusiast's ears, like a cross between 'Ode to Joy' and 'Nessun Dorma'."
"You really could call the new TVR Cerbera heavy metal were it not fashioned from plastic. The best way to experience this car is to be about seven miles away. As it comes toward you, it's like being in a horror movie. The monster is getting closer. The Thing. The Blob. Terror has no shape. But God, what a noise."
"The greatest car ever should get out there and do the job, but it should do more besides, which is why I have to say it's the Ferrari 355. This car is as much a piece of sculpture as a lump of engineering. You could derive as much pleasure from putting it in your living room, where the piano used to be, and looking at it as you could from going for a drive."
"There's one other thing too. No car can truly be great unless it's a Ferrari."
"Speed in itself is not exciting. As you sit in a Boeing, are you thrilled that it's ripping up the sky with a 500mph orgy of big numbers? No, and it's the same deal in a straight line in a straight road in a car. Two hundred mph. So what. What matters is acceleration and handling, an ability to take corners as though they're not there, and this is why the Ferrari F50 has been so well received by those who know. It's light, and simple, like a choux pastry in a world full of suet pudding."
"When I see that there have been 3.6 million examples of road rage in the last year, I say to myself that there must have been 3.6 million examples of bad, inattentive or selfish driving."
"By computing the position of various stars on 11 April 1960, an astrologer would be able to deduce that I'm selfish, arrogant and thoughtless. But this seems like an unnecessarily complicated palaver. I mean why bother with reference books and slide rules and telescopes when you can simply ask what sort of car I drive. See the car. Know the man."
"I mean, it isn't as though the Saab badge stands for anything particularly dramatic. This fighter jet thing seems a bit weak somehow, and anyway it wasn't that long ago when Saab were selling their cars on the safety ticket. And before that, they were doing rallies. The result of all this haphazard marketing is that, today, the cars are almost completely image-free. And that, I suspect, is where their appeal lies. They are sold to people who don't wish to use their car as a style statement, people who simply need four wheels and a comfortable seat so that they may get to work as easily as possible... We're getting somewhere here, because if this is true it explains something else- no one has ever been carved up by a Saab. Think about it: has a Saab ever jumped a red light or tailgated you on the motorway? Have you ever seen a Saab being driven in anything other than a considerate and stealthy fashion? No, and neither have I. This is because the sort of people who are drawn to this image-free environment are the sort of people who don't use their subconscious to drive. They know that to do it properly they have to concentrate, absolutely, on the job in hand. So they do. And that's why they never carve us up."
"Time is running out. Winter is almost upon us. For God's sake, get out there and live."
"Now that's contentious stuff. You can say a car manufacturer's new product is a waste of the world's resources and they'll do nothing. You can liken it to a cup of cold sick and refuse to test it, saying it's more boring than dying, and still they won't react. But call a car dangerous and whoa, what's this? A writ? Blimey."
"Reviewing music has to be the hardest, most pointless job since Twinkletoe-Winkletoe Ffiennes walked to the North Pole wearing nothing but a dressing gown and slippers. Or something. Imagine, please, being instructed to write about the latest All Saints album. You'd listen, hate it, and say so. And a week later, all the 14-year-olds who took it to number one would burn your house down."
"If you're limited by budget, don't buy a new small car. Buy a used big one."
"The engine sounds like Victorian plumbing — it looks like Victorian plumbing as well, to be honest — and the roar from the tyres was biblical."
"He genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he's actually seen the books. In England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot."
"This is a hard job and I’m not just saying that to win favour with lorry drivers, it’s a hard job. Change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That’s a lot of effort in a day."
"[Reviewing Japanese kei cars in this passage.] Then there’s the styling. Or rather, there isn’t. Any attempt to give these cars a tapering roofline or a curved rear end is wasteful of precious capacity, which means all of them look exactly – and I mean exactly – like chest freezers. And because they have such tiny wheels they actually look like chest freezers on casters. And that in turn means they look absurd. And no one is going to spend their money on something that makes them look foolish."
"It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more."
"Nothing can prepare you for the yawning chasm of time that passes in Canada before the healthcare system actually does any healthcare."
"Like many men, I can never find anything that I’m looking for, even when I’m actually looking at it. In a fridge, I think milk is actually invisible to the male eye. And so, it turns out, are dirty great holes in the fence."
"[On the lack of female presenters on Top Gear] The problem is that television executives have got it into their heads that if one presenter on a show is a blond-haired, blue-eyed heterosexual boy, the other must be a black Muslim lesbian."
"I think it’s a good idea to tie Peter Mandelson to a van. Such an act would be cruel and barbaric and inhuman. But it would at least cheer everyone up a bit."
"I have bought a farm. There are many sensible reasons for this. [...] Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The Government doesn't get any of my money when I die. And the price of the food that I grow can only go up. But there is another, much more important reason: I can now have a quad bike. I have always loved the idea of such things."