Jack LaLanne Quotes

I can’t die, [he most famously liked to say]. It would ruin my image.

My show was so personal, I made it feel like you and I were the only ones there. And I’d say: Boys and girls, come here. Uncle Jack wants to tell you something. You go get Mother or Daddy, Grandmother, Grandfather, whoever is in the house. You go get them, and you make sure they exercise with me.

I hate to work out. [...] I’d rather take a beating. To leave a hot bed and a hot woman to go into a cold gym at five in the morning—that takes discipline. But I like the results. Results, results, results.

I was a whole new human being, he said of this transformation. I liked people, they liked me. It was like an exorcism, kicking the devil outta me!

Jesus, when he was on Earth, he was out there helping people, right? Why did he perform those miracles? To call attention to his profession. Why do you think I do these incredible feats? To call attention to my profession!

I care more than — you cannot believe how much I care! I want to help somebody!

That's what I wanted! I wanted to be an athlete, I wanted the girls to like me, and I wanted to be able to get good grades in school, and this man said I could do all that.

Well it is. It is a religion with me. It's a way of life. A religion is a way of life, isn't it?

The crusade is never off my mind — the exercise I do, the food I eat, the thought I think — all this and how I can help make my profession better-respected. To me, this one thing — physical culture and nutrition — is the salvation of America.

When I first started out, I was considered a crackpot, [he said]. The doctors used to say, 'Don't go to that Jack LaLanne, you'll get hemorrhoids, you won't get an erection, you women will look like men, you athletes will get muscle-bound — this is what I had to go through.

People thought I was a charlatan and a nut, [he remembered]. The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.

There is no fountain for youth. What you put in your body is what you get out of it. You would not feed your dog a coffee and doughnut for breakfast followed by a cigarette you will kill the damn dog.

It would wreck my image.

I was the worst, most sickly kid of all – 30 pounds underweight. The girls used to beat me up. Actually I was a mean kid, early on because I had no self-esteem.

God gives us the power to act for ourselves, but let me tell you something. At five in the morning I have never heard this [he says mimicking a knock on the door]. Hello Jack, this is Jesus. I will work out today.