140 Quotes by Michael Palin

My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.

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.

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.

[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.

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

Night falls over Machu Picchu to the sound of Abba's 'Dancing Queen'.

Of course I would do it again, but I know it would never be quite the same. Despite the best laid plans of the BBC, we ended up bustling, hurrying, rushing, improvising to get ourselves home only by the skin of our teeth. And that's what made it worth doing. The smoother the journey the duller it would have been.

I feel this evening that I am too hopelessly and happily corrupted by the richness of London life to ever be right for Dorset, or vice-versa.

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.