Author

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?

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

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.

From Michael Palin

Michael Palin

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