I always look back at when I didn't have a dream, when I didn't have a spirit. I didn't know what the Olympics was all about. I was just hanging out on the street. I was not humble. I was not a nice person, doing things that were socially unacceptable.

Being a nice person is about courtesy: you're friendly, polite, agreeable, and accommodating. When people believe they have to be nice in order to give, they fail to set boundaries, rarely say no, and become pushovers, letting others walk all over them.

Some people who know me might say, 'He's not a great example of a nice person; he's a malicious, tough and ruthless guy.' But when the day is done, as long as I've held to my values and been true to my family and my God, it won't matter what anyone else thinks.

Karl Lagerfeld looks very tough because of the glasses, and he has all these rings and the leather gloves, and he's so smart. But he's a very nice person... when he comes into a room or studio, he is going to say hello to each person, and the same when he leaves.

I think there's a danger that we're moving towards a state where the people we are expected to admire are almost not human anymore, and I don't like that. I prefer it when someone looks like a nice person, and you think, 'I could have a laugh with them in the pub.'

Lana Turner was adorable and funny. Jimmy Stewart was such a nice person. I quickly realized that if you're not a nice person, you're not going to last in this business. I mean, once your box office starts to drop off, like Veronica Lake, they'll get rid of you fast.

Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.

I can remember when I was 24, and I broke up with my first serious girlfriend for the first time. She was a very nice person, but she had a little bit of a tendency toward melodrama... Her response was to take the key to my apartment off of her key chain and hand it back to me.

Everyone assumes I've become this nice person overnight since joining the 'X Factor,' and before that, I was an aggressive, violent chav that just goes around attacking people and swearing every five minutes. It's just brought to the fore certain qualities that were always there.

Certainly Nancy Reagan had an extraordinary effect on her husband. I'm truly not sure that, say, Laura Bush had that much effect on the Bush administration. She certainly, you know, seems to be a nice person who I think the public likes. But I can't really put my finger on any huge impact she's had.

It's really about making opportunities for yourself and connecting with people on a more-than-normal level. That opens doors. You never know if the caterer's brother is someone. You don't know who someone is having dinner with that night. So being a nice person and touching people creates opportunity.

I'm actually quite a nice person. It's to do with the way I look, an uncompromising sort of face, brusque delivery and voice, and I think the combination of all that. When I'm doing pantomime, children will scream the place down before I open my mouth. There's obviously something that really gets them.

I try to be an ethical, moral person and a nice person, and I like to have that reflected in my comedy. I'm not a mean comedian, and I don't think that my comedy is mean. I think that for the most part, it's more focused on the diversity that we all handle and try to provide a distraction from the disaster of modern living.

In my twenties I would be skeptical of a bad haircut, but once you turn thirty it's more about whether he a nice person and does he open the door for me. Once you turn thirty-five, it's more about would he make a good father. And even if you're just liking somebody and digging on someone, I think you can't help but think in those terms.

I have a bad reputation in England, and I don't know why. Maybe it's something that has just followed me. But one thing I always say is that 90% of the people I've played with would say I'm an amazing guy, a great teammate. Other people, those who work on the gate at every stadium I've played at, will tell you I am a humble guy and a nice person.

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