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" People say the most stupid things on the spur of the moment that they then have to retract. "
Michael Palin
Moment
People Say
People
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" I am restless. I don't mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village. "
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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. "
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" 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. "
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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. "
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" 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. "
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" There is barely a country in the world where you will be completely safe. "
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" 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. "
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" I will die, but not retire. "
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" 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. "
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" 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? "
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Award
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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People
Talking
" 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. "
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Story
" I am certainly more interested in interviewing than being interviewed. Sometimes you find yourself attacked from the start. "
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You
Start
Sometimes
" Please don't ask which I enjoy more - acting or hosting - because I love them equally. "
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Love
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" 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. "
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Look
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" 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. "
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Somebody
Out
Find
" I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them. "
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Day
People
Thought
" I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers. "
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Modern
Now
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" 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. "
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Ego
Nothing
Think
" 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. "
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Speak
Dance
Life
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" 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. "
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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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" I would love to go to Iran. The island of Madagascar, everyone says is pretty exotic, or the wonderful Namibian desert. "
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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 can be me, and people seem quite happy with that. "
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" I want people to know there is more to Somalia than looting and piracy. "
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More
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Than
" Travelling, and being paid for it, is just great. "
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Paid
Just
Being