Stupidity is falling pray to your own illusions.

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.

Beauty is the door to another world.

Great effort, fear and suffering sweet all the worthless chaff out of us.

I don't like egocentricity, which is something that I have arduously battled in myself my entire life.

Mountaineering is a complex and unique way of life, interweaving elements of sport, art and mysticism. Success or failure depends on the ebb and flow of immense inspiration. Detecting a single rule governing this energy is difficult - it arises and vanishes like the urge to dance and remains as mysterious as the phenomenon of life itself.