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" I do have high standards. I look at everything I have done and think, 'Why wasn't that better?' Part of my motivation is from crippling self-doubt - I have got to prove myself wrong. "

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" 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. "

Michael Palin

World

Myself

" 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. "

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

" When I read profiles of myself, I sometimes think: 'I have spent my whole life struggling to understand my motivations and impulses, and I've never quite sorted them out.' "

" I've never had a particular skill. I can't cook, dance, play an instrument, speak a foreign language. This used to worry me. I'd think, when I'm grown up, at 18, then I made it 21, it will be clear what role I should have in life. It never happened. I never signed on the dotted line as the sort of adult my father wanted. "

" Fame changes everything. When you're well-known, you're expected to be different. Some people assume you must have a yacht and four homes. Or that you're famous because you are 'A Decent Man'. "

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

" I love reading other people's diaries, especially someone like Virginia Woolf's - such a formidable woman that it's a revelation when she shows you a more vulnerable side of herself. "

" 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 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. "

" 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

People

Over

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

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

" I'm not your expert on Africa or animals or whatever. I'm not a travel writer or maker of documentaries. I was someone who doesn't know very much, trying to communicate. "

" Hollywood was possible for a while! Why didn't I go along with it? Well, the other things that were pulling me back were more important. Being at home, being in the same marriage, these things enabled me to go off and travel in the first place. "

" 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'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. "

" 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 was very bad at projecting my voice. I used to do this Gumby Flower Arranging sketch which involved shouting, and I could never do it right, and at one point my voice went completely. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" So many people had been asking me to write an autobiography, or threatening to write my biography without any input from me, that I thought I'd better tell my story before other people told it for me. "

Michael Palin

People

Story

" 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. "

" If you had a successful TV show, people wanted to see you live. Promoters had had practice with pop groups, and 'Python' achieved a similar status. We also had lots of rock star fans - George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Robert Plant. Promoters saw that and liked it. "

" 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. "

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

Michael Palin

Want

Than

" 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. "