Eddie Edwards > Quotes

“I may be in last place, it may have been a poor jump, but everyone seems to be pleased. Why? Because of the Olympic ideal – ‘The most important thing is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story

“The medical profession has seen quite a bit of me over the years. My case history would make any surgeon blink in disbelief. On the way to the Olympics, I’ve had broken arms, hands, fingers, feet, a fractured jaw and neck and even a broken back.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story

“As Eddie Edwards went flying down that ski-slope in Calgary it may have been a small jump for the Olympics but it was a giant step for the Eagle.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story

“At the time, we had one of those TV’s operated by coins which are inserted in a box at the side. The three of us were sat side by side on the sofa as the PC delivered his stern lecture. ‘Only dial 999 if it’s an absolute emergency,’ he chastized. ‘It was an emergency,’ I shouted. ‘The coins ran out and we lost our picture.’ The policeman and mum had a job not to laugh. They saw the funny side thankfully but we had a telling off we didn’t forget in a hurry.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story

“I’d seen the jumpers before and never given them much thought, but the jumps were easier to get to and what’s more they were free. So off I set to have a go at jumping.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story

“My first accident was when I ended up head first in the coal bucket thanks to Duncan using my carry-cot as a trampoline. There was no damage done that day. I’ve got a hard head you know, which is just as well when I think of all the scrapes I’ve got myself into.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story

“Baron de Coubertin, father of the modern Games, saw the Olympics as a chance to recognize and reward the struggle not the triumph. Former President of the Games, Avery Brundage, described them as ‘the greatest social force in the world’, seeing them as a revolt against twentieth-century materialism and discrimination – of whatever kind. To me, Eddie Edwards, they were, quite simply, the greatest days of my entire life.”
― Eddie Edwards, Eddie the Eagle: My Story