Sandi Toksvig Quotes

The secret to my success is to work seven days a week. It’s as disappointing an answer as the one about how to lose weight. Eat less. Sleep less. Very boring.

I went to a physiotherapist, and she said something to me no one has ever said: ‘Sandi, you have plantar fasciitis, because you’re fat.’ I left and sat in my car shaking. She’d told me the truth, which no one else had. It was painful, but I needed to hear it.

My ambition is to stop showing off. I’d love to be a tweedy academic. I’d be happy living in a croft. I like making jam. So why am I a semi-public figure?

I don’t know a lot about mountaineering. I once went walking in the Lake District with the legendary climber Chris Bonington and had to have emergency physio afterwards to regain sensation in my thighs.

When I came out in September 1994, I was, as far as I know, the only out lesbian in British public life.

The truth is I have never been any good at sport, OK?

I’d love to retire in terms of not having to go to work anymore and earn a living.

Oh my God, don’t ever start a political party. It’s exhausting.

I am passionate about higher education and am hugely impressed by Portsmouth’s mission to encourage students from every walk of life to excel.

Mostly, I’m totally happy in my own space at home with the door closed with my family and friends.

Sitting on a plastic chair at night listening to the sea lapping below while sipping a cold beer is about as good as life gets.

If you play-act for a living, it’s better not to carry on doing it when you get home.

I’m quite a shy person, and I dislike narcissism intensely.

I was never interested in how I look.

I don’t think secrets are a good thing. I think they are a cancer of the soul. So I decided to come out.

When we laugh out loud and we realize that there are others who think the same as us, then we feel better.

You want a kitchen put in, I’m your girl. I’m very handy, and I love a practical challenge. I fit all the stereotypes of the lesbian with power tools.

I’ve had a surprising number of near-death experiences: I was nearly blown up by a landmine in Sudan; I was stranded on the Zambezi river at night; I was bucked off a rodeo horse in Arizona and had to be airlifted to hospital; and, worst of all, I once ate a Pot Noodle.

When my three children were little, I took them to Rome. On our way to our destination, we went to see the Colosseum and returned to the car to find everything had been stolen. Trying to buy everything for a week, including clothing for three small, very tired children, was a low point in my life.

What I think is if the world is in some difficulty – about climate change, about economics – then we had better make sure that 100 per cent of every brain available on the planet is working at full pelt to try to sort these things out.

For three months, when I was 23 years old, I worked as a clerk at Wandsworth Sewer.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be a Mini Me of any of the people whose footsteps I’ve followed in.

My life won’t have full quality until we achieve equality for all.

I was once very unpleasantly groped while I was broadcasting by a famous individual who shall remain nameless. When I told the staff afterwards what had happened, everybody thought it was amusing. There was a shrugged shoulder approach to the whole thing.

I get in a temper with inanimate objects. I can’t bear plastic. I do get in a complete rage with something that’s been shrink-wrapped.

I haven’t the energy to despise anyone.

I like frogs. I am not crazy about their legs in a buffet, but I like their casual approach to life.

I’m ashamed to say, I’ve done hideous pen portraits of people I don’t like in my novels. And they’ll say, ‘Oh, that person was hideous,’ and I’m nodding, and I’m thinking, ‘It’s you, you fool!’

I always wanted to open a delicatessen in Jerusalem and call it ‘Cheeses of Nazareth’.

I always wanted to get married. I was very drawn to the idea of a partner with whom you went through life, a mate who was always in your corner.

When people say, ‘There aren’t enough women on panel shows,’ the answer is to make the host a woman.

My dad died of a massive heart attack when he was 59, as he didn’t look after himself.

Endless books claim that the brains of men and women are wired differently. They have titles such as ‘Why Men Don’t Iron’ and set out to convince us that women are somehow biologically suited to getting the creases out of clothes while men peruse maps.

I’m absolutely obsessed with boxing.

Noel Fielding is one of the nicest guys in show business. The first time I met him, I felt like I had met a rather wayward cousin whose take on the world made me laugh.

No matter how far I travel from Denmark, I still miss the food, so ScandiKitchen in Great Titchfield Street in central London is an essential part of my life.

One of my life’s watchwords is ‘hyggelig.’ It’s an untranslatable Danish term for getting together with friends and family and sitting around in a cosy atmosphere with nice food and wine and candles.

The other day, I was taking part in an audience Q&A when I was roundly scolded by a woman for ‘allowing the BBC to ruin the English language.’ Naturally I felt terrible, as I had no idea either that it was happening or that I was responsible.

Don’t climb into a fridge. That’s my advice.

I’ve downloaded the BBC’s ‘Cranford’ with Judi Dench because I like a bit of bonnet acting, and I can turn it on and off without worrying about whether I can follow what’s happening.

I’ve met Theresa May, and I think she’s a good person. I’m not someone who goes, ‘Ooooh, boooo, the Tories,’ or ‘Ooooh, boo’ anyone, actually. You sit down and have a sensible conversation, and she is really, really capable of having a sensible conversation.

I would not be able to keep going at the pace that I do if I had continued at the weight that I was. I feel so much better; I eat better. I sleep better. I actually enjoy exercise.

I don’t care if you’re from the right or left of politics – there are core objectives we can all agree on: equal pay, equal representation on the media, equal representation at board level, politics, an end to domestic violence.

The fact is, there is not now, nor has there ever been in the whole of history, a single country in the world where women have equality with men.

I’m trying to get my kids – in particular, my step-daughter Mary, who’s 12 – to recommend music to me. You reach a certain age and realise you haven’t kept up, but I don’t want to fall behind.

I am 5 ft. tall myself, and it is rare that I meet someone new who doesn’t comment on my height.

I love ‘Teach Yourself’ books. I bought an old weaving loom and had no time for classes, but one ‘Teach Yourself’ later, and my bobbin is flying.

I can’t live without Radio 4. It’s worth the entire licence fee. I’m an obsessive listener; I get up, and Radio 4 goes on, but it goes off when ‘Thought for the Day’ starts, as that’s a step too far.

I had tried every diet out there – I would lose weight for a bit, then put it back on again.

I will try anything that doesn’t involve a leotard.

I am keen on a spiritual life and have struggled to find a place for my heart in a religious community.

Language is ever on the move, and most days, I check out the ‘Urban Dictionary’ where anyone can invent a new and useful word or phrase.

I’ve always liked being able to go around incognito in Copenhagen.

I haven’t got the patience for small talk, although I once saw a woman standing on her own in the corner, and I realised it was Monica Lewinsky, and I had the nicest evening with her – she was charming.

Too often, there are complaints in the British papers about the BBC. It’s too left wing, too right wing, too pro-Brexit, too anti, and so on. It’s only when you go abroad and try to find out what is going on in the world that everyone falls with gratitude before the BBC News.

Do you know there were two pilots made for ‘Have I Got News For You’ before the series started two decades ago: one hosted by Angus Deayton and one hosted by me. But I was told that they couldn’t have a woman in charge of the news.

A lot of what we think of as history is actually just a version of events which may or may not be true.

You can’t complain or have a say if you don’t vote.

‘The News Quiz’ is one of the things I am proudest of in my professional life.

Like most women, my weight goes up and down.

‘QI’ is exactly what the best TV ought to be – you learn something, but you are also crying with laughter.

I worry that every time I lay down my credit card of choice, it says something about me. About my social standing or how I see myself. The very colour of your card is an indication of where you stand in the wealth stakes.

I’ve played the Royal Albert Hall to 8,500 people, and there wasn’t a nerve in my body.

I dislike hatred, offence, unkindness.

The number one thing in my whole life is my children, and I want to be there for them.

It was actually having a son made me think about feminism.

Because of my fighting for LGBT rights, I have seen the possibility of change. And that gives me heart to believe that it is possible to effect change.