Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" 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. "

Michael Palin

Discomfort

Different

You

" I will die, but not retire. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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

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

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

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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'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 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 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 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. "

" Something about John Cleese was always very unsettled, I felt. There was always something else he wanted to do. He seemed constantly driven by this sense that there was a nirvana somewhere; some unique place where mind, body and soul would be utterly satisfied. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

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

Michael Palin

Want

Than

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

Michael Palin

Love

Iran