Top 86 Quotes & Sayings by Guy Martin

If you were to be put off by every little problem life throws at you, you'd get nowt done.

I can't stop biting off more than I can chew.

The most common way to crash coming out of a corner is to highside - which is where you accelerate out of the corner, and the rear loses grip, then suddenly finds grip and chucks you off the bike.

TV's not really a job, is it?

I fit a lot into my days.

They don't call it the Wall of Death for nothing. The biggest risk is crashing off the top. That's when it gets really messy.

I don't go out. I work, go racing, then go to my shed and make things.

I'm not a materialistic person at all, but I always want the next thing; I've got a nice toolbox, but I still want another set of spanners.

I don't see coming down to London and talking to people and making TV shows as real work. The only reason I do it is because they keep coming up with decent ideas.

If I'd done 'Top Gear,' I would have had to have left my job, and I've got the best job in the world. To do 'Top Gear' and do it properly would mean leaving work, and I can't. I don't want to leave work.

There's a line you have when you're racing, and you can ride up to that line. If you push beyond it, you might crash. But first is first, second is forgotten. That's what we say.

People deal with the concentration needed to do well in a two-hour race in different ways.

Dentists, doctors, surveyors from Latvia wanted to come to England, do anything to get away from the Soviet regime.

Building the machine for 'Speed' was fun, as was working on the 'Spitfire' programme. They are programmes I enjoyed being on, but they are not my job.

It's bred in me that I only see real work as getting stuck in and getting your hands dirty.

Short-circuit racing is full of health and safety, but the reason I ride a motorbike is because of the danger, and there is no place more dangerous than the TT.

Road racing has given me a good life, and I'm not being cocky, but I've brought something to racing, too.

I was born in Grimsby and always lived around there, but it's died a death because of the loss of the fishing industry.

I know what a pound is, and I earn my £12 an hour, and that's great.

Speed on its own isn't always so exciting. On a racing motorbike, I can do over 180 mph, which is fast, but not as fast as the airliners that we all climb aboard to fly off on holiday. Modern passenger jets can cruise at between 500 and 600 mph, but sitting in an aeroplane like that for hours on end isn't very exciting, is it?

I like talking but on my terms. I don't like people talking to me, but I like talking to people.

Pike's Peak was the single best thing I've ever done in motorbiking.

I was working for Martin Finnegan. He was my best mate in racing. I went to his wedding in November 2007. No-one else from the racing world was invited apart from me and my girlfriend. The funeral was the following May.

People who race bikes don't talk about crashes. They keep going.

Speed and danger don't always go together, but it's proper fun when they do.

You can't argue with physics, mate.

I'm a great believer in setting myself goals, and I like to think that, once I've a goal to aim for, I'll do whatever it takes to achieve it.

I'm a bit embarrassed about how little I know about the First World War. I didn't even know that tanks were used in it.

I've never lived like a bloody rock star or anything.

I don't go to racers' funerals.

Life is all about setting yourself goals and then achieving them.

I'd never be disrespectful to road racing. The sport was good to me.

The only thing I keep from the races I've won are the handle bar grips from the bike, the rubber bits.

For my first race, when I was 19, I'd bought a 600cc bike. And that was far too big for me, really. I shouldn't have really had something like that. But anyway, I went and raced, and I crashed. In my very first race! But I never gave in. I kept going back and back and back.

If you get beaten, and you know that you tried your hardest and kept your focus, then that's all you can do.

I race pushbikes more than I race motorbikes, but it's not the same.

Racing's been good to me, but I'm bored of it.

I want to win, whatever it takes.

I've always had a proper job. I don't know anything else.

Going back because it's what I did and I was sort of all right at it is not a good reason to race the TT.

I work nights on a farm in the summer when harvest starts. I work on a civil engineering site down the Humber Docks where all the refineries are. So that's my day job from seven to four. And then I build engines at night.

We all buy our meat wrapped in plastic because we don't like to think about the animal that died.

There's no more expensive sport than racing bloody motorbikes.

Not everybody would choose to be a firefighter or an ambulance driver. Not everyone wants to see the nasty bits of life.

My back is full of metal; so are my hands and legs. I'll have to decide who will get all that in my will. It's probably worth a fortune in scrap metal. But it doesn't affect my movement.

The TT taxes your mind.

When I crash during a race and injure myself, what's the point in whinging? Because I put myself in that position. No one's making me race motorbikes - I want to go and race motorbikes. The most annoying thing for me is lying in hospital and not being able to get to work. I get beside myself.

What I really took in in India was that people - even in the slums - were happy with what they'd got. That's something we're not good at in the Western world.

My idea of splashing out would be buying a new spanner. I've got about 300 - you can't have too many in my opinion.

I feel that I'm in good company behind the wheel of the Williams FW08C. It was the first F1 car to be driven by the great Ayrton Senna, and it won the 1983 Monaco Grand Prix.

I'm the luckiest man alive.

A few people have said my granddad looks like me, but I reckon he's far better looking.

TV people are great folks, but if I said, 'Come and film a beetroot-jar-opening competition,' they would.

I remember, my first season was 1999, and I must have crashed about 13 times in that first year. But then, in the second season, you crash about half as much and then, in the third year, even less again.

In my normal life, I am a private person doing a proper job.

I'll always give it my all, and to be with a quality manufacturer like BMW is mega.

I do all that TV stuff, and it's not real work.

I enjoy working on anything mechanical.

I get home from work at six or seven. When I'm busy, I set my alarm for three, get out of bed at quarter past three. I have a cup of tea and read a magazine and take the dogs for a walk up the lane. Go through my text messages and reply to anything that needs it, then get my biking gear on ready to cycle to work.

Some riders believe in all the hype at the TT; have a successful week, give up work then go and buy motorhomes and cars. I like to get back to normal afterwards and go to work.