Michael Palin Quotes

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?

I feel this evening that I am too hopelessly and happily corrupted by the richness of London life to ever be right for Dorset, or vice-versa.

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

When in doubt, resort to animation.

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

My marriage has worked because I am not around much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future

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

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

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

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

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.

I will die, but not retire.

In the absence of fear there is little faith.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We read poems from the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse. Neil insisted on spilling wine over my carpet.

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

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

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

Travelling, and being paid for it, is just great.

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

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

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!

It's not a model if it's full-size. It's a ice-breaker!

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