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" 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. "

Michael Palin

Voice

Bad

Flower

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

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

Michael Palin

Want

Than

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

Michael Palin

Happy

I Can

" 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. "

" 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'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 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. "

Michael Palin

Pursue

Blessed

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

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

" 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 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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'. "

" 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'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. "

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

Michael Palin

Love

Acting

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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 wanted to be an explorer, but gradually found the world had been explored and that there was nowhere left, really. Once they climbed Everest in 1953, when I was 10 years old, I thought, 'Well, that's pretty much it now.' But the idea of travelling and exploring and adventure was very strong. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

Michael Palin

People

Believe

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "