Michael Palin Quotes

I don't see why it should be remarkable that you can acquire a reputation for fairness and decency. Those are qualities shared by so many people. And the great majority of people I meet are decent people, just trying to navigate their way through the world without causing too much trouble.

I can be me, and people seem quite happy with that.

[There] are people who make a complete and utter mockery of 'democracy' and 'equality' - they're the casualties of the primitive rules of competition which run our society, and the welfare state just keeps them alive. That's all.

George Harrison's passing was really sad, but it does make the afterlife seem much more attractive.

I'd got over playing a character. People accepted who I was, and if I was incompetent and useless, they felt quite endeared to me.

I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers.

I am certainly more interested in interviewing than being interviewed. Sometimes you find yourself attacked from the start.

Despite having seen a fair amount of the world, I still love travelling - I just have an insatiable curiosity and like looking out of a window.

I want people to know there is more to Somalia than looting and piracy.

I mistrust total competence. I've always felt life is a series of small disasters we try to get through.

I have been unusually blessed in that I've been allowed to pursue two strands of a career that both delight me and seem to please the public.

The trouble with travelling back later on is that you can never repeat the same experience.

Geography prepares for the world of work - geographers, with their skills of analysis are highly employable!

Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won't be made safer by creating barriers between people.

Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

If atheists are deaf to the word of God, then theists are blind to the ways of man.

There are people who travel because they want to push themselves to physical limits, people who walk across deserts or cycle across the Antarctic - like Ranulph Fiennes, who just does it because it's there. And then there are people like me, who are just genuinely curious about the world.

Please don't ask which I enjoy more - acting or hosting - because I love them equally.

There is barely a country in the world where you will be completely safe.

I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them.

People say the most stupid things on the spur of the moment that they then have to retract.

Somewhere, a long way away, people are doing sensible things like mowing lawns and digging gardens.

I know that we shall meet problems along the way, but I'd far rather see for myself what's going on in the world outside, than rely on newspapers, television, politicians and religious leaders to tell me what I should be thinking.

The Buddhist version of poverty is a situation where you have nothing to contribute.

I got my first lifetime achievement award years ago, and I was very excited, but then I got a sense of: Well, can one get a second lifetime award?

From my travels around the world I have seen how much damage and pollution is done by the careless disposal of waste. It is also evident that we in the West produce far more and throw away far more than the developing world, almost without thinking

You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.

Night falls over Machu Picchu to the sound of Abba's 'Dancing Queen'.

I will die, but not retire.

I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers. I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars.

I've been lucky to have made a number of travel programmes with the BBC, the object being to see places off the beaten track. As a result, I've often had a guide who's been able to show me things that you wouldn't see with a tour group.

I wanted to be an explorer, but gradually found the world had been explored and that there was nowhere left, really. Once they climbed Everest in 1953, when I was 10 years old, I thought, 'Well, that's pretty much it now.' But the idea of travelling and exploring and adventure was very strong.

One of the difficult things of so much travelling is to say goodbye.

I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveller.

I remember queuing around the block in Sheffield when I was growing up. At that time, going to the cinema was really something special - there was something about the style of the real thing that is immeasurable nicer than multiplexes.

First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more-no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

Now, what sort of person would write a scene where a young man stumbles upon a castle full only of beautiful young women? Answer: ME!

There are many ways of seeing the world. You can hang upside down from a meteor, volunteer to be the fourth stage of a three-stage rocket, or simply get in a balloon and keep going. But if it's sheer, unadulterated discomfort you're looking for, just stay on land.

People look for patterns in everything. It's what keeps us sane, I suppose. I struggle to see any patterns in my life. I think I can understand depression a bit because of my sister. My own feelings of ... I'm aware that, if you feel down, it can be strangely unrelated to circumstances around you. That's just the way life is.

I enjoy writing, I enjoy my house, my family and, more than anything I enjoy the feeling of seeing each day used to the full to actually produce something. The end.

Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

I'm aware that, if you feel down, it can be strangely unrelated to circumstances around you. That's just the way life is.

People are still crazy about Python after twenty-five years, which I find hard to believe.

I always wanted to be an explorer, but - it seemed I was doomed to be nothing more than a very silly person.

My marriage has worked because I am not around much.

If I am seen as successful, it's all the more reason not to change - not to lose track of friends, not to be driven everywhere, not to go and get away from the world. That, to me, is real success: enjoying what you do, but being the same person.