I've got two daughters of my own, and I loved watching my children grow up.
— Eddie the Eagle
In 1988, I earned something like £700,000. Yeah! I was earning 10 grand an hour opening shopping centres. Yeah! The most I earned in one day was 65 grand. I opened the Alton Towers fun ride in the morning, did a commercial in the afternoon and an appearance at a nightclub in the evening. Sixty-five grand in one day!
When I plummeted into infamy in the Calgary Olympics, I never thought that a film would be made about my life.
I receive kindness every day. I love to smile when I'm out and about, and if someone smiles back, which happens about half the time, I think that's an act of kindness every couple of minutes in my day.
My mum was wonderful.
I try to keep fit, as it's better for both skiing and plastering. I cycle and jog and I dance a lot - Ceroc, a form of modern jive.
When I was a kid, people kept saying, 'You can't do this, you can't do that,' and I wanted to prove them wrong.
Once I was making £10,000 for an hour's work, but there have been years where my promotional stuff has brought in only a few hundred.
No matter how many people say you can't do something, use that as inspiration to prove them wrong.
It was while I was in the mental hospital that I got my letter from the British Olympic Association saying, 'Congratulations. You've been picked to go to the Olympic Games.' I kept stressing I wasn't a patient.
I was an expert skier who set his sights on going to the 1988 Olympics in Canada to represent Britain, and went from novice ramps to the 120-metre jump in five months. That's possible only with utter focus.
Sport on TV is so boring.
I think because I'm so naturally happy and unaffected and open, people thought I didn't take the jumping seriously. You're up that high, believe me - you take it very seriously.
If there were some people who considered me a joke, I'm sorry about that. But I did not do it for any other reason except that I loved to ski jump, and I had hopes that by my doing it, other people in my country would take up the sport.
The FIS, BSF, and British Olympic Association have been trying to stop me competing internationally. They don't like the fact that I laugh and have fun and entertain the crowd.
I always know that people will only remember me for my efforts in Calgary which, I must admit, seem without doubt to have kept the name alive. But I honestly love law and really hope it can take off for me. I'm going for it.
The births of my two girls were wonderful - I felt proud to have helped bring new life into this world.
The worst thing that happened to me as a child was seeing my brother get pushed into a cement mixer.
I think the only bones I haven't broken are my shoulder, hip, and thigh.
I'm not frightened of death.
I've never really let any kind of negative things affect me, generally. I would take a positive out of the most desperately horrible situation.
As a child, I was always getting into risky situations with the potential to hurt myself, but mum and dad never stopped me doing what I wanted to do, and they assumed that if I fell and hurt myself, I would learn from that and maybe not do it again.
Resilience can go an awful long way.
It's nice and restful, plastering.
I always say my first job is my building trade. The rest comes and goes.
I was the best ski jumper in the United Kingdom.
It's not been a bad life, and I do know that I could never have been a world champion. All I ever wanted to do was be the best I could with what I had, which wasn't very much, really. And that's what I think I did.
I've fractured my skull twice, damaged a kidney, snapped a cruciate ligament in my knee, and broken all manner of bones, including my jaw. And I count myself very lucky it hasn't been worse!
Ski jumping is just 10 per cent physical, 90 per cent mental. Some people can't do that. It's not just to do with the fear at the top. It takes a lot of guts to go off the top, but it takes 100 times more courage to jump off the end.
When people make fun, it doesn't bother me. I've always enjoyed a laugh.
People seemed to appreciate how much I wanted to pursue something I loved. They seemed to understand how much ski jumping meant to me.
I always do the very best I can, and I should be given the opportunity and the right to represent my country.
I've hated poetry ever since I was at school. I include Shakespeare in that. I don't understand the obsession with him!
I wore No. 24 at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada - one bib on the back and one on the front - and those are like my medals.
My brother is 18 months older than me, and my sister is three years younger. I'm the middle one. I was born in Cheltenham, and that's where I grew up.
The press portrayed me as a joke and a clown.
I like nothing more than walking down a country lane or along a mountain path - it's not proof that there is anything bigger than ourselves, but I feel very much at peace.
My dad supported me by working extra hours and giving me a little bit of extra money. He bought my camper van for me so I could go into Europe and drive from competition to competition.
Some people thought I wasn't taking the sport seriously because I was always laughing and having fun, but I loved my skiing, I loved my jumping, and I thought, 'Well, why not have a smile on my face when I'm doing something that I really, really love doing,' and that's how I was.
I don't like bullies or selfishness or people who are grumpy.
That James Bond movie? The one where Bond skis off a cliff, shucks his skis, and parachutes to the ground? That's for me. That's what I want to be. A stuntman in a Bond movie.
You've got to think life can give you some bad knocks; no matter how hard you're knocked, you've got to get up.
I was like the George Clooney of the ski business.
In the right circumstances, terror is good. It makes you focus.
For all my 'Eddie the Eagle' goofing around before the camera while in training for the Calgary Olympics in 1988, I was never less than 100 per cent serious on every single jump.
People say I wasn't a real athlete, but I trained hard. It's possible to take something seriously and still have fun at it, you know.
When I trained with the Japanese team, there we'd be singing Oasis songs at the top of our voices at the top of the jumps. People thought we were daft.
Maybe I am a little bit of a clown, but I am also a serious sportsman.
I won't win a World Cup, and I won't win the Olympics, but I'm sure I can compete with the best, and that's what I want to show.
I'm a positive person who likes to have fun and get the best out of every day.
