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" 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. "

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" 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 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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.' "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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'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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" You don't ask people about the immigration policies of the U.K. or their country's agricultural policy. Instead, you talk to them about the meal they're eating or their family, and from that you get the sense of another human being, someone we can all relate to. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" I'm not good at confrontation. I know my strengths. I like company. And I am not a great arguer... I do find it much easier talking to people I like about things we both like. "

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