I’d got over playing a character. People accepted who I was, and if I was incompetent and useless, they felt quite endeared to me.
Somewhere, a long way away, people are doing sensible things like mowing lawns and digging gardens.
Geography prepares for the world of work – geographers, with their skills of analysis are highly employable!
There is nothing better than playing a scene with John Cleese or Maggie Smith. It’s electric. But I don’t think I’m the sort of person who needs to have an outer ego in order to produce something. I realised that through the travel programmes.
I wanted to be an explorer, but gradually found the world had been explored and that there was nowhere left, really. Once they climbed Everest in 1953, when I was 10 years old, I thought, ‘Well, that’s pretty much it now.’ But the idea of travelling and exploring and adventure was very strong.
I don’t see why it should be remarkable that you can acquire a reputation for fairness and decency. Those are qualities shared by so many people. And the great majority of people I meet are decent people, just trying to navigate their way through the world without causing too much trouble.
There is barely a country in the world where you will be completely safe.
Please don’t ask which I enjoy more – acting or hosting – because I love them equally.
People say the most stupid things on the spur of the moment that they then have to retract.
I will die, but not retire.
I am restless. I don’t mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village.
Despite having seen a fair amount of the world, I still love travelling – I just have an insatiable curiosity and like looking out of a window.
Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won’t be made safer by creating barriers between people.
I’m aware that, if you feel down, it can be strangely unrelated to circumstances around you. That’s just the way life is.
George Harrison’s passing was really sad, but it does make the afterlife seem much more attractive.
The Buddhist version of poverty is a situation where you have nothing to contribute.
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.
You can’t get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.
I am certainly more interested in interviewing than being interviewed. Sometimes you find yourself attacked from the start.
My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.
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.