Phil Keoghan Quotations

Riding a bicycle is about getting back to basics. It's good for the waistline and it's good for the wallet, is what I'm saying.

I like to have fun with them. I like to toy with them a little bit. we're making television, after all. Right?

La Paz, Bolivia, is the most extraordinary city.

There's a sameness and comfort level you get living in a country like America.

Inevitably you're going to be delayed somewhere. Always have a book. Always have a movie. Always have a notebook. And then always have a sense of humour.

People ask me what the most important thing to take on the race is, and I always say it's a sense of humor. If you've got nothing but a sense of humor, you will survive.

With any good story, you need the adversary, the heroes and villains. You need a good mixture to make it work.

I really wish we could stay longer in the countries we visit, but I've been lucky to have visited most of them before, because I've done a tremendous amount of travel.

With the reaction that we got from the family version, people clearly made a statement that they wanted that international element in the show. I think it showed that the places are as much stars in the show as the people themselves. People were missing that exotic element ? that fish-out-of-water element where people were completely and utterly dumbfounded as to what to do because of culture shock and language barriers. They missed that. And I think that is a huge hook for us.

We tried something. I'm really proud that we tried something, because I think if we hadn't tried to change the race, people might have criticized us for not being adventurous and doing something different. I'm proud of what we managed to pull together, but there is no denying that the race is most successful when it has less faces, more places and teams of two racing around the world.

For me, personally, I love to see the teams going to places we never get to see in mainstream media. . . . It's always a big eye-opener for these teams to go to someplace that is just very different from their local community. There's one location that we get to in the Middle East where the teams are immersed in a daily task that a lot of the local people have to go through. And it's great to see teams that are used to going down to the 7-Eleven suddenly having to cope with living life in a completely different way.

Just wait until you see a 9-year-old girl go screaming past a 40-year-old man with a big ego in a challenge.

I think the locations themselves are sometimes the bigger star then perhaps we realized.

It has a dramatic impact on the teams. It was definitely tougher on the teams than a lot of other seasons. That has to do with the fact that we got the message from viewers that they wanted an international flavor. They wanted more exotic locations, more adventure, push the people more.

I think if we would have put people that were extraordinary athletes, extraordinary travelers in this extraordinary situation would be a total disconnect with the audience. The fact that they are more ordinary, the fact that a lot of them are unfit and have never traveled, that's what makes the show work.

Who knows how far they go? They were beaten out so far by a 9-year-old kid,

What we are able to do is give the audience a different perspective on the world then what they are being fed though the news every night, the message of wars, riots, and that it's unsafe to leave America. We are putting a positive spin on the world.

There's no denying the fact the race is most successful when it has less faces, more places, and where it is teams of two racing around the world.

There's always been rumors and speculation. Everyone feels like they can pick the winner. The show is all about the enjoyment of entertainment and enjoying their journey.

Forage requires luck, but can be accomplished quickly, ... Gorge is easy and a sure thing, but completing this task will take a very long time.

It's the most number of miles we've done in that short an amount of time. People clearly wanted the international element. They missed it. The places are as much the stars of the show as the people themselves. That was illustrated when you look at season eight. People were missing that exotic element, the fish-out-of-water element. That is a huge hook.

It's pretty intimidating to get on the track, so thanks to our instructors who made great progress with all the drivers.

Not reading clues all the way through has got to be the worst.

I'm sorry to tell you, you've both been eliminated from the race.

I'm a big fan of human dynamics. Nothing fascinates me more than really interesting people and human dynamics.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to college or you shouldn't finish your degree, but sometimes people have a very clear vision about what they want to do, and they just want to get on with it.

I try to encourage people to identify the things in life that they really want to do, so that over a period of time they can design or steer their life towards those things.

I once had a young musician come to me and say that he wanted to be a professional musician. I asked him to write his list. When he came back to me, the three things in his life he most wanted were: to be paid for his music; to travel around the world; to meet new people. We came to the decision, after thinking really creatively, that if he got a job on a cruise ship, he would fulfill those goals.

I'm driven by telling stories, I love telling stories.

I love stories. When I tell a story, I try to think of people sitting around a crackling campfire.

A good storyteller can hold everybody captive without the special effects of Hollywood.

I love to be challenged because I'm wrong a lot of the times.

After more than twenty-five years in television, there are days when I feel like I'm just beginning, because I'm learning new things. I want to be better all the time.

I love finding myself in the most bizarre situations, drinking cobra's blood - really diverse stories. And yet, I will still turn up on location sometimes and be surprised by what I'm encountering or by how to do something.

I love the underdog stories. I love people who refuse to give up.

All of us make assumptions about what somebody's potential is, because we all think of why somebody can or can't do something. We make terrible assumptions.

I love underdogs, people who have achieved extraordinary things against the odds.

I'm all about nonfiction. I rarely read fiction. I like to read about things that really happened, facts, real life situations. That's what inspires me.

Stories have inspired me all my life. I like reading about what other people have done and it inspires me to share my own stories, and encourage people to make their own life stories.

When I hear people watched my film and then got on their own bikes and rode, whether a few miles or across America, to achieve their own goals - that excites me. It's the power of a story.

As you get older and you realize you really don't know as much as you think you know, you listen more. Because then you think, now I need to be more receptive to the things I don't know. That's how you learn.

I tell you what I love - and I think you get better as you get older - when you're younger and you don't know what you don't know, you tend to talk more about what you think you know. You shut out the opportunity to learn what you don't know.

We have a gift of life. What we do with that gift is dependent on the choices we make. The people who we spend time with. The things that we go out to do every day.

There was some expiration point to my life, and it became very important to maximize the time that I did have on Earth. That's what led me to my personal philosophy: "No Opportunity Wasted" - NOW for short, which is about living life to the fullest.

I'd always felt like I was going to take part in adventures in my life. That's what led me to diving in the shipwreck to begin with. But when you're faced with your own demise, you have to accept that you are vulnerable and that you are only here for a set period of time.

I've always been about setting goals. Then when I had a near death experience at nineteen, it made it even more important to strive to achieve certain things.

If you look around my room, you see lots of lists. I'm inspired by what's up on the wall.

At the end of the day, we're all judged by those we leave behind.

There are times where you can't always get paid to do the things you really want to do. What really epitomizes your dream job is the job that pays you to do what you want to do.

Where we really effect change, in terms of creating a passionate work force, is by listening to kids early.

Schools often box kids into predefined categories. But we don't know what amazing ideas, inventions, cures, and contributions all these youths really have.

There are amazing teachers, but the system doesn't always allow them to address the individual needs of a child.

Our schools are filled with this potential energy, and we need to create an environment for that energy to manifest itself.

I do believe that out of adversity comes incredible resourcefulness.

Instead of focusing on the amount of money lacking in your budget, focus on what you DO have: a willing spirit, an imagination filled with bright ideas, people who care about you and can perhaps help you in some way. These are the things that will enable you to do almost anything.

Anything new and different is most susceptible to market research.

We need diversity in our population to make it work.

The world is waiting for you. Good luck. Travel safe. Go!