Michael Palin Quotes

When I'm travelling, I always take my little notebook and scribble things down as I watch them; I'm very much geared to everything that's happening. Whereas, the diary I keep is just about a record of a day I've spent. When I'm filming, I'm looking quite intensely at everything I see and trying to get my own eye on what we're going through.

Once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote.

As I work in the afternoon on committing to paper some of my morning's thoughts, I find myself just about to close on the knotty question of whether or not I believe in God. In fact I am about to type, 'I do not believe in God', when the sky goes black as ink, there is a thunderclap and a huge crash of thunder and a downpour of epic proportions. I never do complete the sentence.

I am restless. I don't mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village.

When in doubt, resort to animation.

John Hall, my geography teacher at school inspired me to a lifelong interest in geography and a curiosity about our world which has stayed with me through my life. Geography is a living, breathing subject, constantly adapting itself to change. It is dynamic and relevant. For me geography is a great adventure with a purpose.

I would love to go to Iran. The island of Madagascar, everyone says is pretty exotic, or the wonderful Namibian desert.

Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future

'Nice' means nothing. Is it someone who doesn't swear and shout? I swear and shout. 'Nice' sounds ineffectual.

One of the most important days of my life was when I learned to ride a bicycle.

There is nothing better than playing a scene with John Cleese or Maggie Smith. It's electric. But I don't think I'm the sort of person who needs to have an outer ego in order to produce something. I realised that through the travel programmes.

My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.

It's not an easy option. The essence of travel is letting go of habit and prejudice and relishing the unfamiliar. Food you've never eaten before, a language you've never spoken before, religion that mystifies, customs that confuse, politics that perplex, all question everyday assumptions about how you live your life.

It was a strange feeling going into a church I did not know for a service that I did not really believe in, but once inside I couldn't help a feeling of warmth and security. Outside there were wars and road accidents and murders, striptease clubs and battered babies and frayed tempers and unhappy marriages and people contemplating suicide and bad jokes, but once in St. Martin's there was peace. Surely people go to church not to involve themselves in the world's problems but to escape from them.

All I ask of food is that it doesn't harm me.

I've never particularly liked travelling with large groups or being told where to go by somebody else. I prefer to find out for myself.

In the absence of fear there is little faith.

The human race should just slow down and think about what it is doing.

You don't ask people about the immigration policies of the U.K. or their country's agricultural policy. Instead, you talk to them about the meal they're eating or their family, and from that you get the sense of another human being, someone we can all relate to.