Classic mountaineering grows out of a traditional romantic imagination. Its heart is the feeling, its path is blood, sweat and tears, and its restriction is God.

I just have a dream mountain under the eyelids, this is my breath, my life.

Every type of evil we've got in us is the result of that one true illness of the human mind - that is, of being self-centered.

Isn't a person who can live on nothing much stronger? I try to nurture that transformation in myself.

Whenever a climber leaves the known paths, he enters an area without rules or routines... The only advice comes from deep inside the self.

Other extremely alluring traits in people are simplicity and naturalness. Simplicity and naturalness are never painfully obvious qualities, and yet which I come across them in a person, I get this sense of a firm foundation and of a direct access to truth.

I like to describe Himalayan climbing as a kind of art of suffering. Just pushing, pushing yourself to your limits.