Quotes from Charley Boorman

I lost my sister Telsche to ovarian cancer in 1997 and my grandparents on my mother's side both had cancer but well into their 70s.

At the time when I was going to school in Ireland people didn't really have a clue about what it was, so I had to spend a lot of my time trying to explain to teachers what dyslexia meant.

I remember being very free in Ireland.

I think people saw him as someone who did good things for Ireland. If you looked at all the Irish actors in 'Excalibur' alone - Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson - there was a whole gaggle of Irish actors who've gone on to become stars, so Dad was really part of that.

I was a child actor in 'Deliverance,' but not the banjo player. It was my dad's big movie as a director, and at the very end there's a scene where Jon Voight comes home to his wife. I played his young son.

I found I was being pushed to one side and I was being ear-marked as being thick, which is a very damaging thing to be told as a young kid.

Ewan McGregor and I travelled 20,000 miles from London to New York by bike. It was incredible.

There's a whole culture now where you meet travellers who don't give you a scrap of paper with their address on it, they give their GPS coordinates. 'I've seen this amazing place in Malawi you've got to go to! I'll give you the coordinates!'

I'm a traveller, I love to travel.

Travelling is fantastic fun and you see far more of a country journeying through it.

I don't read when I'm travelling.

GPS devices are fantastic, but when travelling, especially in the middle of Africa, you must always bring a map as well.

Excalibur' was a quest for my father. I remember it was manic on the film set. And we had these massive castle sets. I think my dad was under tremendous pressure making the movie because there was so much going on. I remember it was a hard one to make - a lot of stress and strain.

Any trip is good. Any bike trip is better!

You hear stories about the horror crashes of the Dakar Rally, which is a long 16-day race, and about people getting lost in the desert, and they're all true. Every 20 minutes, you were just about to crash. Bikes, cars and trucks all race at the same time.

When you're nuts about motorbikes, sooner or later, you get to the point where you really want to do a long journey.

Often dyslexic kids will excel in being a little bit mischievous or tying to find attention in other ways because they're not getting it in class.

I'm amazed how unable I am to deal with the demands that are made on me as an actor. Not the one I enjoy, which is standing in front of a camera or onstage pretending to be someone else but everything else that comes with it.

Travel is the spice of life.

I grew up in Ireland, in the Wicklow Mountains just behind Dublin, and got a job in a Volkswagen garage when I was 14. I did it in the summer for about five weeks. My father thought it would be a great idea because I was really into bikes.

Whenever I get home the house becomes messy and chaotic. Kinvara, my daughter, said, 'Mummy, do you like it when Daddy is away, because the house is nice and clean?'

I grew up in Wicklow, near Roundwood. It's a beautiful place on the east coast. That's where I started riding bikes.

I have a reading problem and it's hard for me to read books. But I had no problem with the 'Emerald Forest' script.

If you say to people, 'I'm off to Papa New Guinea,' you'll often get a bad reaction - usually from people who've never been there. There's this fear of the unknown. And 99% of the time, you end up surprised - it rekindles your faith in humanity.