Michael Palin Quotes

Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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!

The need to eat, sleep and dry out plays havoc with your sense of wonder.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

My marriage has worked because I am not around much.

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

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

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

When in doubt, resort to animation.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

In the absence of fear there is little faith.

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

It's not a model if it's full-scale, Tomkinson, it's an icebreaker.

Ronnie Barker was a straightforward man who had this extraordinary ability to make the nation laugh

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

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

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

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.

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