Instead of the god of security, we bow to the greater god of freedom, the freedom to take risks and master danger in order to be intensely alive.

Better we raise our skill than lower the climb

My ambition was to become the best climber and I never did. I think that goal was a wrong goal. A better one is to put more emphasis on enjoyment and on getting a rounded experience and on things like friendship, rather than on sheer achievement.

The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength. We wouldn't touch rock if we were perfectly self-controlled. And he who would climb and live must continuously wage this battle and never let folly win. It's an outrageously demanding proposition. But I never said it was easy.

Climbing is a great game-great not in spite of the demands it makes, but because of them. Great because it will not let us give half of ourselves-it demands all of us. It demands our best.

With the best equipment in the world the man with poor judgment is in mortal danger.

A first ascent is a creation in the same sense as is a painting or a song