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
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Fame changes everything. When you're well-known, you're expected to be different. Some people assume you must have a yacht and four homes. Or that you're famous because you are 'A Decent Man'.
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The American dimension to Python happened quite late. People said they weren't interested, and we'd practically given up hope.
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Travelling, and being paid for it, is just great.
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'The Truth' is not meant to preach or point any fingers. It's meant to show that perhaps we should all avoid taking the moral high ground unless we have thought about things a bit more.
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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'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.
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We were amazed at the enthusiasm of American audiences.
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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.
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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.'
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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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Hollywood was possible for a while! Why didn't I go along with it? Well, the other things that were pulling me back were more important. Being at home, being in the same marriage, these things enabled me to go off and travel in the first place.
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Something about John Cleese was always very unsettled, I felt. There was always something else he wanted to do. He seemed constantly driven by this sense that there was a nirvana somewhere; some unique place where mind, body and soul would be utterly satisfied.
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I think you learn a lot about a country from its art. To me, it's part of the drama of life. It teaches you that there are places, moments and incidents in other cultures that genuinely have a life of their own.
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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.