Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Roy Hodgson

I don't know whether you ever get over things that cause you pain.

I assisted Bobby Houghton at Halmstads, and we were both just under 30. We'd say, 'Wouldn't it be great to do this for maybe 10 years, save a little money, then perhaps start a little business together.' Some sort of travel agency. We had no football thoughts beyond that, other than maybe combining it with a bit of sport, getting a few tours going.

I think I like the artistry of the game. I still get a lot of pleasure watching the good-quality teams play, where the movements of the players are coordinated. It's almost ballet-like, although 'ballet-like' is a bit of an exaggeration.

There is a belief that getting any particular job may depend on who has just had five consecutive victories. If that's the way it is, I've got a healthy attitude.

A lot of the players who've done so well aren't necessarily the big names: James Tomkins, Luka Milivojevic to name two.

I like Philip Roth, John Updike, and Richard Yates.

I was so fully involved in football and building a career that I didn't spend nearly enough time with my son when he was growing up.

When you have been lucky enough to move up the ladder, all you see, really, is the slide back down. You don't see the further steps upwards.

Brazil is a fantastic football country.

I don't own photograph albums - the pictures that are important to me are etched in my mind.

I don't think anything's cruel - if you're so sensitive these days that you see cruelty everywhere, unfortunately every time a comedian comes on television, you're going to accuse him of cruelty, because that's the kind of humour that the English people enjoy.

I try very hard not to look back.

What you've got to do in any coaching job, whether it is moving to Sweden as a young man - where being English gave you a slight advantage - or something else, you've got to win the players' respect.

The important thing is to take each game as it comes.

I don't think there are many people out there - except, perhaps, the odd Twitter troll who knows no better - who believes that racially abusing people or threatening people is the right way to go.

If success is about winning the league, there will always be 19 disappointed clubs.

I have always promised myself and my wife that when I don't enjoy it anymore, or I can't handle the stress and the pressure that comes with having such a high-profile and top job - or my energy levels starts to fail me, or my enthusiasm starts to be dented - I won't prolong my career longer than I feel I should.

I played a lot of tennis when I was young.

The day it becomes impossible for teams like Palace to get results against City, the league might as well just fold up, and we'll do everything on paper.

I am not only privileged to work for the FA and England: I have enjoyed working for the FA and England.

I quite liked Dostoyevsky when I was younger.

It does get hot in England from time to time.

A lot of young coaches who respect the fact I have been doing it a long time, that is often their question: 'Does it get any easier? Can you relax more during the games? Can you take it all a little bit more philosophically and put it more in perspective?' The tragedy is that I have to tell them, 'No. If anything, it gets worse.'

In football, however well you think you are doing, however well your life is going, there is always a mugger there lurking in the shadows to bash you over the head when you least expect it.

When you focus the spotlight so much on one person, I think it's very, very dangerous.

Everywhere I've managed, I've left a platform for my successor to build on, and this is a great satisfaction for me, even if I don't necessarily get the recognition for it.

I can get by quite well in Italian or German, though if the discussion got to a high level, I'd run out of vocabulary. I'm stronger in French and Swedish.

I think, increasingly, people will define success as staying in the League, being a stable Premier League club that treats its fans to good football every year.

It hasn't always been a Premier League ride for Crystal Palace supporters. They're there to support us through the hard times.

I don't think you sign a four-year contract in the Premier League and then go to China at the age of 26.

You can't flirt with relegation every year.

Getting that first foot on the rung of the ladder, that's where you find it easier to shrug off those times when your foot slips off, and you have to get yourself going again.

I've got to that stage in my life where, difficult decisions I don't have to make, I push them into the future until such time I have to make them.

It's very flattering that those who have assessed my work over the years think that I have the qualities to be an England manager.

I suffer during games. We follow the action, kicking every ball, wondering if our centre-backs can stop the cross... In some ways, you enjoy it, but your heart is always thumping.

Most teams - whether they like it or not against Manchester City - you're going to find yourself quite often penned in your own half.

I didn't realise I had a speech impediment until I came back to England. I spent the whole of my life working abroad, and no-one mentioned it. I came back to England and suddenly realised I had a speech impediment.

Really and truly, I don't like talking about refereeing decisions.

It wasn't purely Alex Ferguson's experience that made him a good manager, because he did it when he was inexperienced. But if you've got the qualities needed, and then you add experience to it, someone who's been through it, well, that has to be advantageous. There's no doubt about that.

Of course, any work you do as a sporting person, a football coach or any coach, if it is good work, you've got to have something - a championship - to show for it.

For goal-scorers and centre-forwards, confidence does play a big part.

I have been in football a long time, and Wayne Rooney has been in football a long time. He would regard me as someone who is very false if I ever said to him, 'Your place is guaranteed.' He would not expect it, and I would be very upset anyway if anyone asked me to give them a guarantee of a place.

The last thing you want as a striker is the opposing team putting all 10 players behind the ball.

There is so much interaction in a football match: between you and your team-mates and how you support each other, work for each other, make runs. But I also enjoy the other aspect: the pressing and how people work so hard to recover the ball.

Why shouldn't Harry Kane take corners? If he happens to be the best striker of a ball in the team and gives you the best delivery, why shouldn't he do it?

I've got to be honest with you: I don't regard 29 as old.

I've worked for a long time and hope people have developed enough confidence in me that it will remain even in a period when we're not winning many games.

Hugh Grant is about the only actor I've met who has taken any proper interest in football, being a big Fulham supporter. But he'd be far too good-looking to play me in any film.

The Premier League is what it is. Some people will see the intensity and quality as a great advantage for your players: it will make them better. Some will see it as a disadvantage because the players play at such a high level and such intensity, it's difficult for them to drum that up, that intensity, with a very short space of rest time.

Fans jump on your bandwagon and desert you when you hit the harder times.

Getting the balance right in everything is all of football and all of sport.

There aren't many English managers, I suppose, who've had the sort of career that I've had, outside the country. With the amount of money that is going around in the Premier League, not many people are tempted to move abroad.

I don't sit around wondering, 'Why am I here? Who made the stars?' I prefer to look at the stars and benefit from them rather than concern myself with how they got there.

I don't like the way I see society going.

In an ideal world, the season would end, and the players would have two to three weeks by the beach. You'd have four to five weeks of preparation, and then you'd play the tournament.

I speak five languages: English, Swedish, French, Italian, and German.

Hindsight does always serve the purpose of putting you in the right, and if you don't have it, you find yourself very often in the wrong.

I have been in football a long time.

I'm always disappointed when we lose, and it's happened quite a few times.

I'm a football manager, a football coach; I can't be expected to pontificate on everything.