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
along hollywood home marriage possible pulling travel
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.
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.
great
Travelling, and being paid for it, is just great.
avoid bit ground high meant perhaps preach taking truth unless
'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.
crippling high prove
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.
insatiable might people
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.
ask family human meal people policies relate
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.
amazed enthusiasm
We were amazed at the enthusiasm of American audiences.
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.
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.
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.