Michael Palin Quotes

For the most part, if somebody approaches me and says, 'I'd like to interview you,' who am I to say no, when I spend all my days going, 'Hello, you don't know me. I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you have a little time?'

Interviewing people is pretty natural for me.

I never use the word 'I' when I interview someone. I think it's irrelevant.

I'm the type of person, I'll fight whoever.

I have spent a long time being asked questions in interviews, so I've experienced it on the other side but I'm really not afraid to ask any question myself.

Whenever I met anyone who knew anything, I would bore them stiff until they told me what they knew.

I do not speak frequently or otherwise to the press.

If you don't have the smoking gun, then it's pointless to hector interviewees. Because you just shut people up instead of opening them up.

I was extremely aggressive from the start.

I don't think of myself as giving interviews. I just have conversations. That gets me in trouble.

When you're interviewing someone, you're in control. When you're being interviewed, you think you're in control, but you're not.

I like doing interviews. I really do.

I've been both a journalist and a politician, and I can tell you it is more fun to ask the questions than have to answer them.

I'm belligerent rather than ambitious.

Facing the press is not easy, but because you have to go, you have to try to take a lot of positive things for yourself from these face-to-face meetings.

In an interview, I lose control even of what I am, for it is the interviewer who edits me, finally, into what he thinks I am, and never have I been happy with someone else's version of my life after that person has spent an entire two or three hours fathoming it.

I was taught not to confront and interrupt people, but that's what I do every day on 'The View.'

I always do my interviews face to face.

What I do for a living is ask questions.

Something seems to happen to people when they meet a journalist, and what happens is exactly the opposite of what one would expect. One would think that extreme wariness and caution would be the order of the day, but, in fact, childish trust and impetuosity are far more common.

When you're faced with an opponent, the media asks the questions, and I answer truthfully. I don't hold back.

Hamilton was extremely combative. Not only was he combative, but he also overreacted to anything he perceived as a threat or a criticism.

I've always thought if I could pick my interviewer, it'd be Charlie Rose, who I think is the best.

Talking to the press, you say things a little differently.

I hated working red carpets, I hated the whole celebrity interview process. I just realized I'd rather be the person somebody wanted to ask questions to than the person asking the questions.