Marco Pierre White

Like most fathers, I would do anything for my children, and I've worked very hard at trying to be a good father. I want to give them education, security, everything I never had.

People still think I led a rock and roll lifestyle. I was in my kitchen 100 hours a week; I didn't have time to do that.

You can't be a chef and appear on television all the time. It's impossible. At least when I earned my stars, I was always behind my stove.

One day, a chef moaned that he was too hot, so I took a carving knife in one hand, held his jacket with the other, and slashed it. Then I slashed his trousers. Both garments were still on his body at the time.

If you really want to know what motivated me as a young man, it was a fear of death.

I came from a hard, working-class world which, since my mother's death, had been dominated by men. I hadn't been encouraged to talk about the burden of grief, and because I was severely underdeveloped when it came to sharing my emotions, I mustn't have been the most communicative husband.

A cookery book should be there for inspiration. Recipes should be a guideline, and they shouldn't be cast in stone.

I can't work in a domestic kitchen; it's just too confined. There's no freedom, and there's no buzz.

You cannot criticize a man for going to work. You really cannot.

The only time I am seen in public is when I go to work. When I go home to England, I never leave my home.

Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer when I was a lad. From then on, he lived in fear that death was just around the corner, and he set about programming me to work hard and bring in some cash.

I am a believer that if you bring children into this world, then you have a responsibility to do your best and support and guide them until the day you die.