Michael Palin
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 want people to know there is more to Somalia than looting and piracy.
Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my lifeCollection: Inspirational
John Hall, my geography teacher at school inspired me to a lifelong interest in geography and a curiosity about our world which has stayed with me through my life. Geography is a living, breathing subject, constantly adapting itself to change. It is dynamic and relevant. For me geography is a great adventure with a purpose.Collection: Teacher
Geography is the subject which holds the key to our futureCollection: Keys
I'm aware that, if you feel down, it can be strangely unrelated to circumstances around you. That's just the way life is.Collection: Way
I mistrust total competence. I've always felt life is a series of small disasters we try to get through.Collection: Trying
It's not an easy option. The essence of travel is letting go of habit and prejudice and relishing the unfamiliar. Food you've never eaten before, a language you've never spoken before, religion that mystifies, customs that confuse, politics that perplex, all question everyday assumptions about how you live your life.Collection: Letting Go
You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.Collection: Rubber
The Buddhist version of poverty is a situation where you have nothing to contribute.Collection: Buddhist
I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.Collection: People
If atheists are deaf to the word of God, then theists are blind to the ways of man.Collection: Atheist
One of the difficult things of so much travelling is to say goodbye.Collection: Goodbye
All I ask of food is that it doesn't harm me.Collection: Food
Night falls over Machu Picchu to the sound of Abba's 'Dancing Queen'.Collection: Queens
In the absence of fear there is little faith.Collection: Religion
There are many ways of seeing the world. You can hang upside down from a meteor, volunteer to be the fourth stage of a three-stage rocket, or simply get in a balloon and keep going. But if it's sheer, unadulterated discomfort you're looking for, just stay on land.Collection: Land
Once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote.Collection: Travel
It's not a model if it's full-scale, Tomkinson, it's an icebreaker.Collection: Ice
I remember queuing around the block in Sheffield when I was growing up. At that time, going to the cinema was really something special - there was something about the style of the real thing that is immeasurable nicer than multiplexes.Collection: Growing Up
[There] are people who make a complete and utter mockery of 'democracy' and 'equality' - they're the casualties of the primitive rules of competition which run our society, and the welfare state just keeps them alive. That's all.Collection: Running
My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.Collection: Years
If I am seen as successful, it's all the more reason not to change - not to lose track of friends, not to be driven everywhere, not to go and get away from the world. That, to me, is real success: enjoying what you do, but being the same person.Collection: Real
Somewhere, a long way away, people are doing sensible things like mowing lawns and digging gardens.Collection: Garden
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.Collection: Struggle
I enjoy writing, I enjoy my house, my family and, more than anything I enjoy the feeling of seeing each day used to the full to actually produce something. The end.Collection: Writing
Now, what sort of person would write a scene where a young man stumbles upon a castle full only of beautiful young women? Answer: ME!Collection: Beautiful
From my travels around the world I have seen how much damage and pollution is done by the careless disposal of waste. It is also evident that we in the West produce far more and throw away far more than the developing world, almost without thinkingCollection: Thinking
As I work in the afternoon on committing to paper some of my morning's thoughts, I find myself just about to close on the knotty question of whether or not I believe in God. In fact I am about to type, 'I do not believe in God', when the sky goes black as ink, there is a thunderclap and a huge crash of thunder and a downpour of epic proportions. I never do complete the sentence.Collection: Atheist
First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more-no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.Collection: Naughty
It was a strange feeling going into a church I did not know for a service that I did not really believe in, but once inside I couldn't help a feeling of warmth and security. Outside there were wars and road accidents and murders, striptease clubs and battered babies and frayed tempers and unhappy marriages and people contemplating suicide and bad jokes, but once in St. Martin's there was peace. Surely people go to church not to involve themselves in the world's problems but to escape from them.Collection: Suicide
Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.Collection: Lying
I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers. I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars.Collection: Flower
The need to eat, sleep and dry out plays havoc with your sense of wonder.Collection: Sleep
Ronnie Barker was a straightforward man who had this extraordinary ability to make the nation laughCollection: Men
George Harrison's passing was really sad, but it does make the afterlife seem much more attractive.Collection: Death
When in doubt, resort to animation.Collection: Doubt