Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Martin Kemp

When I was young, I first went into the theatre which opened up across from my house. My mum and dad put me in there, not to become an actor or anything but to get rid of my shyness, which was so bad, to the point it was painful. My time there was all about encouragement and improvisation.

With shows like 'Made In Chelsea,' we all know what they're doing is rehearsed. So why not have an audience phone-in element? They can make the decision on what they're going to argue about.

I joined Spandau Ballet not because I wanted to be the best musician in the world, but because I wanted to be Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando.

When I was younger I really challenged the boundaries of fashion, I guess I always have.

For me it's the funniest show on TV. 'Benidorm' is such old-school, 'Carry On,' panto humour. It's so warm.

I can't dance. There's some things I have to admit I can't do, and dancing is one of them.

My mum and dad were together 55 years, I don't think they spent a day apart.

Every TV show you want to do, they want to look in your house. It's God's honest truth, they want to send a TV crew round to your house!

My wife Shirlie was in Wham! when we met, so we were moving in the same circles.

When Spandau were at the peak, there was a lot of pressure on us as brothers that kind of saved the band for years. If there was ever a moment where the band might explode, it was left to me and Gary to go off and have the biggest argument - I remember having proper fist fights with him in the 80s - and that got rid of the tension.

To be amongst people that know their lines and you're the only person that doesn't is just bizarre.

I find the older I get - carrying this thing called fame - the more I close myself off. That's what you do.

It's fun being on a film set full stop.

Bowie's my hero.

We grew up in Islington, north London, in a Georgian terraced house that nowadays would be split into flats. Our grandparents lived upstairs, there was another tenant living up there and downstairs was the office where people in the area paid their rent.

Sometimes when somebody wants to take the lead it's nice to take a back seat.

It's fun for me playing bad guy or good guy.

Every time you do something good you have to stand back and breathe the moment in.

I was a shy kid so my parents sent me to Anna Scher's theatre school. That's how I got my first proper role aged ten in the BBC show 'The Glittering Prizes.'

When I was growing up, a Saturday job was a rite of passage, every kid had one.

When Take That came around my band had just come to an end and I was settling into acting life.

I've worked with lots of actors who sit at home for years waiting to get a job, then as soon as they do, they want to go home.

If you walk through life and you relate to everybody who looks at you, it would send you mad. So you close those people off, and you end up in a very small, tight bubble.

In 1995, I discovered I had two brain tumours. The process of having them removed went on for about three years. It was a long and drawn-out time, wondering whether or not I was going to die.

The more famous you become, the better you can get the job in front of you.

I was always proud of the fact that Spandau and Duran Duran were like Oasis and Blur or the Beatles and The Rolling Stones - where you pick two bands of a generation and you're either on one side or the other.

We used to have a nanny who was obsessed with Take That. She was in love with Mark Owen and her room in our house would be plastered with Take That posters. Whenever I used to walk in the door she would be playing Take That songs to Harley, my daughter. That's when I fell in love with the song 'A Million Love Songs,' that song means a lot to me.

There was a greengrocer on Rotherfield Street off Essex Road in Islington, north London. My brother Gary worked there for a couple of years and when he moved on I took over.

I love greengrocers. When I walk in I always look at their pyramids of fruit to see if they have done it properly because I thought I was an expert pyramid builder.

I was 18 when I signed my first record contract and in those days fame was a lot of fun.

Apart from my family, the closest people to me in the world are the guys in the band.

I think love gets better the older you get.

It's quite hard sometimes coming into a show where everybody's quite cliquey, where everybody's been set for a number of years and you're the guest star. It's quite difficult, it's nervewracking in a way.

I present, I direct, I act - I do all these things and I live inside this wonderful bubble called entertainment.

I think it was my mum and dad who taught me how to love and how to think a relationship works, and I think it was by watching them.

Having brain tumours made me appreciate my family more. It made me appreciate everything more.

I think improvisation is a skill, that if you learn it at a really young age then you can use it for the rest of your life, whether that's acting or singing.

I'm so used to being in a drama, or something like that, where you have everything planned out.

Gary and I have been working together all our adult lives and there aren't many brothers who have that opportunity, or they have that opportunity but can't make it to the finishing line. I love the fact that I get to spend so much time with him and I'm not sure there's any other job, except being in another band together, where we'd get to do that.

There's not many jobs where you go home and are still smiling.

Live Aid's one of my favourite memories of all-time.

My mum Eileen, a former machinist, made some of my costumes for 'Top Of The Pops.'

I won't feel I'm Roman's boss just because I'm his dad. I've never had that relationship with him at all. It wasn't the way we brought him up. We were friends. If Roman did something wrong, I showed that he hurt me rather than telling him off.

What greater thing can you do than walk on the moon?

I cry all the time.

I wanted to play for Arsenal.

Saint Tropez and Ibiza were the true essences of early New Romantics.

When you become a parent, you have all these ideas about how you're going to treat your kids as they get older. But as you get to those points it always changes. I actually like the surprises.

I remember playing six nights at Wembley in the 80s. I partied for three of those straight, with our friends Duran Duran. Back then, the fun was about the after-show - who was coming to the party and whether they had a guest list pass.

Everything in life prepares you to do something else, no matter what you do.

I'm not really romantic. I'm just not the guy who brings home flowers and chocolates, but I do choose my moments.

If you've seen 'Hustle' before, 'Hustle' is kind of like one degree over reality. It's always heightened, which makes it fun to watch in the way that they play it, in the way that stories are, even the way that it's shot - the camerawork is heightened and it's meant to do that.

If you're lucky enough to come from, I was very lucky when I grew up, I grew up in a house fill of love, my mum and dad had no problem showing love in front of me, which I think is why I want to teach my kids how to love.

If you do something you love doing, it keeps you young and it keeps you healthy. That for me is what success is.

The best thing my mum and dad ever did for me was keeping me at home and giving me time to find my feet.

Fame is great when everything in your life is going well. But when it goes wrong, when you're having to jump on a bus, because you can't afford to pay for a taxi, and you catch people looking at you. It might sound strange, but you feel ashamed. And that's hard to deal with.

Charisma always was the important thing to me.

Success for me has been turning a hobby into a job and when my kids left school, I did the same for them.

There was a moment when Thierry Henry returned to Arsenal for a game against Leeds, and the whole of the ground was waiting for him to come on. He came on and he scored. And he went right down the pitch, and jumped into Arsene Wenger's arms. At that moment I was bawling my eyes out. I could see how much it meant to him.

As a teenager, I used to carry the equipment for Gary's band, so I was kind of like his roadie. Every night after a gig, I'd go to bed dreaming of being in the band myself.