Michael Palin Quotes

You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.

I find that her hearing is quite a lot worse and that she has suffered a loss of confidence in herself, which it will be very hard to replace.

Rae was an explorer in the mould of Amundsen and Nansen, listening to the locals, learning from them what to wear, what to eat and how to survive. In his lifetime he mapped 1,750 miles of unexplored territory, with the loss of only one man. What a contrast with the disastrous expedition whose fate he was the first to discover.

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.

My philosophy of travel, such as it is, is that the more difficult somewhere is to get to, the greater the prize to be won by getting there. But when the prize was North Korea, I found this was not a view shared by my wife.

I wish them a long and happy life. If it's as long as their wedding, I'm sure they'll be fine.

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.

Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life

"The bitterness of Poor Quality remains long after the sweetness of Low Price is Forgotten."
From "Hemingway Adventure" by Michael Palin.

You’re not a has-been, you’re a has-now.’ I like that.

Before entering our room we had to remove our shoes. Here Ken and myself made what I expected to be the first of many faux pas. After taking our shoes off, we noticed some oriental style slippers nearby and presumed that we ought to put these on in true Japanese style. Grumbling that they were all too small, we eventually selected two pairs and were tottering to our room when one of the Japanese ‘attendants’ – it wouldn’t be quite right to call them ‘waitresses’ – stopped us excitedly and told us to take off the shoes. Then we realised the awful truth – that they belonged to people already eating there.

A writer's mind must never be closed. It's his duty to be curious and my duty to feed the curiosity. Think of it as the start of a big adventure.

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.

[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.

The ships slowly picked their way through, guided from patch to patch of open water by the shouts from the crow’s nest. Tern, cape pigeon and white petrel flew around the ship. Seals on the ice were so slow to take fright that they were easily bludgeoned on the head and brought on board for food. In the stomach of one of them they found 9 lb of granite stones, which puzzled Ross, as they were a thousand miles from the nearest land.