Top 15 Jimmy Savile Quotes

Now then, guys and gals.

It was good while it lasted.

[On his mother who he nicknamed the "Duchess"] When she died she was all mine. She looked marvellous. She belonged to me. It's wonderful, is death.

My dad, Vince, who was a bookmaker's clerk, gave me a drag on one [a cigar] at Christmas, thinking it would put me off them forever, but it had the opposite effect.

When you’re doing Top of the Pops and Radio 1, what you don't do, is assault women, they assault you, that's for sure, and you don't have to, because you've got plenty of girls about, and all that, so dealing with something like this, is out of the question and totally wrong, full stop

Because I've never done anybody any harm in my entire life, 'cos… there's no need to [...] No need to chase girls, I've thousands of them on Top of the Pops, thousands on Radio 1. No need to take liberties with them, out of the question, and anyway it's not my nature.

[On Stoke Mandeville Hospital] I own this hospital, NHS runs it, I own it, and that's not bad.

My business, there's women looking for a few quid, we always get something like this coming up for Christmas, because we want a few quid for Christmas, right.
And normally you can brush them away like midges and it’s not much of a price to pay for the lifestyle.

But Gary [Glitter] has not tried to sell them [images of child pornography], not tried to show them in public or anything like that. It were for his own gratification.
Whether it was right or wrong is, of course, it's up to him as a person. But they didn't do anything wrong but they are then demonised.
If you said to that copper, what's Gary Glitter done wrong? Well nothing really. He's just sat at home watching dodgy films.

Louis Theroux: So, why do you say in interviews that you hate children when I've seen you with kids and you clearly enjoy their company and you have a good rapport with them?
Jimmy: Right, obviously I don't hate 'em. That's number one.
Louis: Yeah. So why would you say that then?
Jimmy: Because we live in a very funny world. And it's easier for me, as a single man, to say "I don’t like children" because that puts a lot of salacious tabloid people off the hunt.
Louis: Are you basically saying that so tabloids don't, you know, pursue this whole "Is he/isn’t he a paedophile?" line, basically?
Jimmy: Yes, yes, yes. Oh, aye. How do they know whether I am or not? How does anybody know whether I am? Nobody knows whether I am or not. I know I'm not, so I can tell you from experience that the easy way of doing it when they're saying "Oh, you have all them children on Jim'll Fix It", say "Yeah, I hate 'em."
Louis: Yeah. To me that sounds more, sort of, suspicious in a way though, because it seems so implausible.
Jimmy: Well, that's my policy, that's the way it goes. That's what I do. And it's worked a dream.
(Pause)
Louis: Has it worked?
Jimmy: A dream.

[After being informed of an unnamed 1960s pop singer sleeping with 12 to 14 year olds.] Yes. I would never have time to excuse anything like adults being into children. In fact I'd rather not even opinionate on this. I’ll leave it to the Anthony Clares of this world to sort out the psychology of child abuse. But I will stand up and say this sort of thing is sickening, not part of my world at all.

Anthony Clare asked me my feelings towards children, and I said, "I couldn't eat a whole one . . . I hate them!" [...] But that is because I want to shut up someone who's trying to go down that dirty, sordid road with questions like that.

An interviewer once asked what I did as part of my voluntary work [there] and I said, "Everything, from taking milk into the wards, to taking the lately deceased from the wards," and that suddenly became "he’s into" necrophilia. But that doesn’t bother me at all.

[When asked if "rumours that he had been a psychopath, practised necrophilia and was into young girls might turn out to be true" in 2001.] Bollocks to my legacy [...[ If I'm gone that's that . . . Whatever is said after I'm gone is irrelevant.

[When asked about his freedom from emotional attachment to other people.] The tough thing in life is ultimate freedom, that's when the battle starts. Ultimate freedom is what it's all about, because you've got to be very strong to stand for ultimate freedom.
Ultimate freedom is the big challenge, now I've got it, and I can tell you there's not many of us that have got ultimate freedom. I've got some considerable clout as well, all over. That is where the battle, the personal battle starts now.
I've managed to handle complete and ultimate utter freedom. It's marvellous but it's dangerous.
It would be easy to be corrupted by many things, when you've got ultimate freedom, especially when you've got clout. I could be corrupted.