I see one single suitable role for my life's work: for it to be a gift to others.

Enslavement to your own weakness - be it an addiction to alcohol, or to a woman or to fame - it's degrading, and it means losing your dignity and your freedom.

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.

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.

In this way the climber faces his second deadly threat. The first is naturally the risk of killing the. Second is immersed in the deceitfulness of mental and believing that you are worth as much as the public image.

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.

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.