Michael Palin quotes - page 2

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

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

Michael Palin

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.

Michael Palin

I will die, but not retire.

Michael Palin

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

Michael Palin

I've got a false lip.

Michael Palin

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

Michael Palin

They're the rallying cries of prejudice, the call to arms of those who find it easier to hate than admit they might be not be right about everything.

Michael Palin

There are many ways of seeing the world.

Michael Palin

Nuns with banners!

Michael Palin

I think you learn a lot about a country from its art. To me, it's part of the drama of life. It teaches you that there are places, moments and incidents in other cultures that genuinely have a life of their own. (Michael Palin)

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

Michael Palin

I've always been blessed, or cursed, some might say, with an insatiable curiosity, a desire to find something out about a people and a place. That's where it all begins.

Michael Palin

I've been lucky enough to stand on both poles, but the place that seemed the remotest to me was Butugychag, a former gulag in Siberia. It is completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Michael Palin

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

Michael Palin

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

Michael Palin

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.

Michael Palin

I don't seek discomfort. But, very often, you realise that what you fear is actually quite ephemeral; something's different, something's unfamiliar; therefore, it must be worse.

Michael Palin

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

Michael Palin

The kids growing up is a separate strand to your life. However bad a day you've had, that's the most important thing, and you have to remember that.

Michael Palin

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. (Michael Palin)

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.

Michael Palin

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.

Michael Palin

Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future.

Michael Palin

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

Michael Palin

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