Michael Palin
Michael Palin
Michael Edward Palin CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter. He was one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and later made a number of travel documentaries...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth5 May 1943
CityBroomhill, England
expert maker travel trying writer
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.
people trying quality
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.
notebook eye trying
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.
trying life-is disaster
I mistrust total competence. I've always felt life is a series of small disasters we try to get through.
ability man nation ronnie
Ronnie was a straightforward man who had this extraordinary ability to make the nation laugh.
effortless himself ronnie turn
Ronnie could turn himself into any character. He did it with an effortless ease.
ability anyone laugh man nation
a straightforward, down-to-earth man who had this extraordinary ability to make the nation laugh - probably more often than anyone else I know.
dimension given happened people python quite
The American dimension to Python happened quite late. People said they weren't interested, and we'd practically given up hope.
course easily hope huge material muslim religious share throughout
Of course there is a huge in our material welfare, religious upbringing, and things like that. But things like your family, your house, your children's education, your hope for the future, are things that throughout the Muslim world they would share very easily with their counterparts in America.
people
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.
bad however kids life separate strand
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.
life profiles quite sorted spent
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.'
both cut former seemed
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.
fear quite realise
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.