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.

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

If there is such a thing as spiritual materialism, it is displayed in the urge to possess the mountains rather than to unravel and accept their mysteries.

Naturally, the top does not automatically make us better. Like the samurai frequented ordinary cutthroat, so sometimes extreme mountaineer can be self-centered, mythomaniac or crook to each yourself and the environment.

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

The man coming back from the hard mountain trip is a wiser being, calmer and radiating inside. I'd say momentary liberated.