I've never lived in the visual world. I live very much in an emotional-contact world.

My father offered me a dollar for every pound I would lose as a kid. It didn't work. And it doesn't really work in the long run.

If I have to die, I want to combust in the middle of one of my classes.

When you're feeling down, sad, lonely, negative, you don't want to take care of yourself - and the weight problem and the diabetic problem and the heart attack and stroke problems and high cholesterol set in.

Truthfully, everyone knows how to eat right. They know the difference between oatmeal and a jelly cream doughnut. They know how to walk. Everyone has this in their brain. When I started, we didn't have all this knowledge. Forty years ago, I lost my weight, but only by watching what I was eating.

You know, if your parents didn't have you, they'd be living in a nicer home, driving a Mercedes-Benz, with money in the bank and a boat. But noooooo. They had to have you! You've got to give back!

I get an abundance of e-mail every day, some say 'dear Richard, can you call my husband, he weighs 400 pounds...' or 'my 14-year-old is 200 pounds...' or 'I just got divorced, no one wants me, I am 500 pounds.' So I pick up the phone and I call people.