Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

— Michael Palin

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 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.

— Michael Palin

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'.

— Michael Palin

I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveler.

— Michael Palin

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.

— Michael Palin

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.

— Michael Palin

It was a strange feeling going into a church I did not know for a service that I did not really believe in, but once inside I couldn't help a feeling of warmth and security. Outside there were wars and road accidents and murders, striptease clubs and battered babies and frayed tempers and unhappy marriages and people contemplating suicide and bad jokes, but once in St. Martin's there was peace. Surely people go to church not to involve themselves in the world's problems but to escape from them.

— Michael Palin

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

— Michael Palin

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

— Michael Palin

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

— Michael Palin