A Quote by Michael Palin
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.
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When I find too many puzzles about the way explanations are given about why there is inequality - why people who work the hardest in the world end up being the poorest - I can't just sit back and not try to understand why the gaps between people are increasing, or why there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world.
The vast majority of young people I meet would benefit so much from a year off. You should just go waste a year in exploring the beauty of the world and trying the craziest experiences you can.
Today in America many people are living in a virtual world. They enter it through an internet access device and they navigate freely around it, and those people who learn how to navigate better in that space are finding that they have better access to information about jobs and education and all the good things that our society produces.
People who look for the first time through a microscope say, 'Now I see this, and then I see that,' and even a skilled observer can be fooled. On these observations I have spent more time than many will believe, but I have done them with joy, and I have taken no notice of those who have said, 'Why take so much trouble,' and, 'What good is it?'
Don't consider sarcasm the 'be-all' and 'end-all' of verbal intercourse. Far too many people place way too much importance on the sarcasm instead of the talking, in and of itself, as a precious shared experience between people.
The trouble with Hollywood is that too many of the top people responsible for pictures are too comfortable and don't give a damn about what goes up on the screen so long as it gets by at the box office. How can you expect people with that kind of attitude to make the kind of great pictures that the world will want to see?
I guess I was just always one of those guys who asked those fundamental questions: 'Who am I? What's this for? Why? What does this mean? Is this real?' All these pretty basic questions. I like making movies about people who are self-conscious in that way, and are trying to feel their way through the world.
Recognizing that the world is governed by a minority, the sexually active, and that they hold sway of a huge majority of the nonsexual, those people too young or too old or too poor or too homely or sick or crazy or powerless to be able to afford sexual partners (or the luxury of systematic, sustained and shared introspection, so sexual in its own way). All advertisements and films and songs are addressed to sexuals, to their rash whims and finicky tastes.
'Atlanta' is really trying to put that out there: these are just the lives of these people in this city, and this city is its own breathing, living thing, too. So how do you navigate through life, especially with dreams and aspirations in a world that tells you that you don't deserve to have them.
If Gone With the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.
What Habitat does is much more than just sheltering people. It’s what it does for people on the inside. It’s that intangible quality of hope. Many people without decent housing consider themselves life’s losers. This is the first victory they may have ever had. And it changes them. We see Habitat homeowners go back to school and get their GEDs, enter college, do all kinds of things they never believed they could do before they moved into their house. By their own initiative, through their own pride and hope, they change.
We are all the time, from our childhood, trying to lay the blame upon something outside ourselves. We are always standing up to set right other people, and not ourselves. If we are miserable, we say, "Oh, the world is a devil's world." We curse others and say, "What infatuated fools!" But why should we be in such a world, if we really are so good? If this is a devil's world, we must be devils also; why else should we be here? "Oh, the people of the world are so selfish!" True enough; but why should we be found in that company, if we be better? Just think of that.
I think we are here to challenge ourselves and make ourselves better people and not just sit around in the world simply floating through life. You should be trying to do something great and making yourself better. You should be trying to evolve. That's what I'm trying to do, and that is very important to me.
I consider that a most ignoble endeavor. The only way I would like to 'help' the great majority of people is the same way Carl Panzram 'reformed' people who tried to reform him. It would be most merciful to help them by relieving them of the life they seem to hate so much. People should be happy I'm not a humanitarian-or I'd probably be the most diabolical mass murderer the world has ever known.
I've had people send messages that said, 'I'm sorry how I treated you in high school.' It was just through kindness. I still think of the world the same way I did growing up. When I got hurt, I decided that this is how people are. But the world is changing, and even those people have changed. And I have. I need to let go, too.
I used to think of all the billions of people in the world, and of all those people, how was I going to meet the right ones The right ones to be my friends, the right one to be my husband. Now I just believe you meet the people you're supposed to meet.
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