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In climbing I do things that I enjoy and want to do not the ones that are currently in fashion.
Muriel Sarkany
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 Quotes
2012-10-27
In climbing I do things that I enjoy and want to do not the ones that are currently in fashion.
Muriel Sarkany

2012-10-09
Climbing is climbing, it’s fun in the first place, people tend to make it more complicated than it really is.
Mélissa Le Nevé

2008-08-07
The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.
Royal Robbins

2008-08-07
The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.
Royal Robbins

2008-08-07
The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.
Royal Robbins

2008-08-07
The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.
Royal Robbins

2008-08-07
The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.
Royal Robbins

2008-08-07
The rock is a field of battle between our weakness and our strength.
Royal Robbins

2008-05-26
I don't think of myself as a grading barometer and I doubt if any climber could be one.
Fred Nicole

2008-05-19
This is the essential thing, simply being away, struggling with a Wall in the best way we can, finishing what we started, then looking back and remembering the place and the meaning.
Tom Higgins

2008-05-05
Now I approach climbing differently. I have learned less effort and energy, less obsession, and more feeling, as with piano, more emphasis and less frenzy.
Pat Ament

2008-04-30
We choose to believe that the granite is alive. If life is movement, then rock – with its atoms flying around like stars in cosmos – is alive.
Yvon Chouinard

2008-04-09
At its best, climbing becomes a life focus around which everything else must orbit and at its least is an excellent diversion from the real world.
Todd Skinner

2008-03-29
When I climb, concentration must be present. With it, there is familiarity and sometimes possibility to look deep down into your soul. Because there, there are no more lies. There is only truth.
Beat Kammerlander

2008-03-24
They say every man needs protection, They say that every man must fall. Yet I swear I see my reflection, Somewhere so high above this wall.
Bob Dylan

2008-03-15
I wonder if one can view risk like a drug, beneficial to the organism in the proper dose. Too much or too little may be harmful...
Tom Hornbein

2008-03-08
The whole idea of comparing climbers is ludicrous.... It would be like sitting Van Gogh down with Rembrandt and saying, "Ready, get set, go".
Pat Ament

2008-03-03
Climbers are a universal tribe: we share the knowledge that things are not important. Experience is important. Feeling is important.
Steve House

2008-02-23
You're not a master until you've become a good teacher. And I'm teaching the world to fucking ice climb at the moment.
Steve Haston, 1998

2008-02-16
He liked to play chess and do intelligent things, and I was a serious drinker and nonthinker.
Warren Harding about Royal Robbins

2008-02-04
You will die before your Verve pants do.
Advertisement in climbing magazine

2008-01-21
I'm somebody who finds something to focus on - some goal - and then I work toward that. And climbing is perfect for that.
Tommy Caldwell

2008-01-14
Climbing is so fun and such a good experience, that I think it's important not to take it too seriously. It's not the end of the world - or the entire world either.
Chris Sharma

2007-12-16
If there's only one thing I would like to say, this is: enjoy the process. Don't worry about the result. Climbing must be fun.
Marc LeMenestrel

2007-11-11
The ancient Greeks asked oracle for answers; Native Americans fasted in the desert; I go climbing.
Steph Davis

2007-11-05
You know your life is over when you own a lawnmower.
Todd Skinner

2007-10-30
When I wonder what I'm doing up there, cold, exhausted and terrified, I remember the words of Winston Churchill: 'When you are going through hell, keep going'. He must have been a climber.
Marie-Odile Meunier Bouchard

2007-10-21
Climbing does not mean just competition and performance. It has other qualities that are important: going on trips, meeting people, seeing other cultures...
Wolfgang Güllich

2007-10-11
I have remained a kid at heart and appreciate the gamble involved, and the pleasure of the unknown.
Jean-Marc Boivin

2007-09-26
Like it or not taking risks, by a total commitment to the mountain and the vagaries of the weather, is essential for the greater satisfaction to be derived from mountaineering.
Doug Scott

2007-09-11
Before the deed comes the thought. Before the achievement comes the dream. Every mountain we climb, we first climb in our mind.
Royal Robbins

2007-08-27
It’s a wonderful feeling to push even a tiny piece of the planet down beneath one’s feet. If it’s overhanging plastic, it’s going to pump your arms like bloated sausages; if it’s a steep snow-slope at 27,000 feet it’s going to deaden the legs and make the lungs like overworked bellows. Either way, the challenges are obvious.
Adrian Burgess

2007-08-19
During the sixties, all the risk-type sports were very popular, because everybody was rebelling against their parents, or rebelling against the whole system. But those days are over. This is the day of conservatism.
Yvon Chouinard

2007-08-13
When I go to the mountains, I intuitively know my place in the world much better through these experiences. The more intense they are, the better I know myself, and the more I am able to challenge myself.
Galen Rowell

2007-08-05
I think I am a dangerous person. When I climbed K2, I didn't consider anything except reaching the summit. It was a crazy thing, but many people do that.
Naoe Sakashita

2007-07-30
Now I don't worry about falling but I'm not different from any of those women: I'm not bold, I'm not brave; in fact, I'm a total chickenshit.
Shelley Presson

2007-07-24
After the climb, you should feel no trace of tiredness; on the contrary, it is then that you should be really fresh. Then you will have found the correct measure of your abilities.
Hermann Buhl

2007-07-15
When you die it negates the whole game: you haven't just fucked yourself, you've hurt lots of other people - that's when it becomes irresponsible and tragic.
Greg Child

2007-07-02
I believe people should always strive to do climbs in the best style they think possible, but never criticize others for what they choose to do.
Tommy Caldwell

2007-06-20
I live not in myself, but I become portion of that around me; and to me high mountains are the feeling, but the hume of human cities torture.
Byron

2007-06-12
Expeditions tend to disrupt your personal life, your financial life and your health. The more you go on expeditions, the more chance there is of repeating all those things.
Jack Tackle

2007-06-07
The climbing and soloing aren’t worth dying for, but they are worth risking dying for.
Todd Skinner

2007-06-01
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.
Royal Robbins

2007-05-21
I look at climbing not so much as standing on the top as seeing the other side. There are always other horizons in front of you, other horizons to go beyond and that's what I like about climbing.
Chris Bonington

2007-05-13
If the routes stayed the same, but the gradings were suddenly all switched around, it would be interesting to see which routes people would be trying.
Jim Holloway

2007-05-07
I think anything that you put your life's energy into becomes part of your identity. It would be difficult for the Rolling Stones to not play rock and roll anymore, because that's their image of themselves. When you've convinced everybody that that's who you are, that's who you are.
Jim Bridwell

2007-04-30
I think risk is important. I don't care if it's a great financial risk or a physical risk. You only get out of something what you put into it and the fact that you are willing to risk something means that you are going to get a lot more out of it.
Yvon Chouinard

2007-04-24
Occasionally in my life I have come to places where the way divided. Always I have chosen the one that led back into the mountains, even when a woman stood in the other road.
Anderl Heckmair

2007-04-16
It's been said that a good mathematician must be lazy, because only then will he find the most elegant way to solve something. That's how I feel about climbing; I'm happiest if I can do something with the minimum amount of effort.
Raphael Slawinski

2007-04-10
I say the last 10 percent of the way to perfection takes so much of your life that it isn’t worth the effort. This overzealous attitude is what creates religious fanatics, body Nazis, and athletes who are exceedingly dull to converse with.
Yvon Chouinard

2007-04-01
Through climbing, I learn, little by little, every day, who I am. I am still learning and I’ve been climbing 15 years. There are many different aspects of such learing – knowing your body, knowing your spirit. For me, climbing is one of the ways to learn living.
Patrick Edlinger, 1992

2007-03-25
If you’re concentrating on climbing , you can’t be concentrating on money and cars and houses and wives and boyfriends. And when you come back to deal with them, you have a better view of their reliative importance. Climbing puts things in perspective again.
Jeff Lowe

2007-03-19
The champion will quickly learn that it is much easier to become one than to remain one. It's never crowded at the top, but the queue is long and others are banging at the door.
John Long

2007-03-11
In high school, I'd take girls climbing, instead of on dates. There was one girl in particular who'd have made a brillant climber. But she was disappointed when we went climbing instead of dating. She never returned my calls after that; maybe she had another ideas about how the ropes should be used.
Paul Piana

2007-03-04
Every day I go out and climb, like a dancer works on his dance. He probably has some goals, some pieces he would like to perform, but his main goal is to work on his dance. This is how he expresses himself. Both he and I are interested in the same thing. It’s the dance that counts.
John Bachar

2007-02-27
I got a big sponsor; my mom. She doesn't charge me rent, she even kicks me a free meal every now and again. She's loaned me money on a pretty liberal pay-back plan.
Hans Florine, 1993

2007-02-19
I don't actually care what I climb, only how it affects me. Which means the summit doesn't matter as much as the emotional process.
Marc Twight

2007-02-12
The best thing about coffee is that if you drink enough of it, you have to do something, even if you feel like doing nothing.
Christian Griffith

2007-02-05
My advice for climbers or photographers is to really tune into your own passions and not just what other people are doing or aren't doing. Figure out what works for you, what turns you on, what gives you the greatest amount of energy and feeling of satisfaction.
Galen Rowell

2007-01-28
It's difficult for me to understand why people believe that climbing is not competitive... The reason people are stretching the limits, soloing, doing things without protection, is that they're being pushed by other climbers; Competition is good for sport.
John Roskelley

2007-01-22
If we ever have children and they become climbers I'll tell them, "Stay away from expeditions. They'll make you poor and neurotic".
Greg Child

2007-01-16
The public demands heroes, and you can’t have 50 heroes – it is much easier to have one or two, and those are the people who get to the top.
Martin Boysen

2007-01-07
Death is a gift. Without it we wouldn't value life.
John Bachar

2007-01-02
My market value increases with every outside critisism. Therefore, the frequently raised contention that I am the most highly critisized mountaineer does not disturb me in the slightest.
Reinhold Messner

2006-12-29
Himalayan climbing is about putting one foot in front of the other and breathing whilst doing so.
Roger Baxter-Jones

2006-12-18
If I got a motorbike, I'd probably kill myself. I know it sounds like a bit of cliché but I think people who know me would agree with that.
Tim Emmett

2006-12-15
In order to climb properly on big peak one must free oneself of fear. This means you must write yourself off before any big climb. You must say to yourself, ‘I may die here.’
Doug Scott

2006-12-08
I can't climb just a little. I need to crank like a bastard.
Klem Loskot

2006-11-30
When a woman hunts for a partner, she is instinctively looking for one who would provide her with a good strong gene pool... If he has a tendency to hang from cliffs by his fingertips... it's pretty safe bet he's fit and healthy.
Cosmopolitan Magazine, 1992

2006-11-21
We are missing some fine routes by not being light enough to climb clouds.
Wade Mills

2006-11-13
If you’re totally motivated to be a professional climber, that’s great – as long as you go about it in a fair and honest way. You don’t go out chipping routes, overgrading, lying and bulshitting to receive publicity.
Jerry Moffatt

2006-11-05
I think I got him hooked on climbing when I gave a slide show at Darmouth. So there’s probably another mother out there who hates me.
Jim Bridwell, speaking of John Middendorf

2006-10-30
I like people who are good because they’ve tried hard. People like Dave Graham are annoying because they’re so good and haven’t even had to try. Dave did 8b+ in his first year of climbing!
Danny Cattell

2006-10-23
The aim of the mountaineer, if he wishes to be an artist in the full sense of word, is neither escape nor "the search for the absolute" as some have claimed, but rather seek that place where "the mystic remains silent and the poets start to speak towards men".
Bernard Amy

2006-10-16
Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.
Greg Child

2006-10-09
What is behind you is forgotten. You can't remember danger and difficulty when it is behind you.
Wanda Rutkiewicz

2006-10-02
Newspapers ascribe the word "climber" to any person who falls in the mountains or off a rock. To refer to anyone who falls in the mountains as... a climber... is as factual as to say that anyone who sits down at a piano is a pianist.
Pat Ament

2006-09-26
When we started we made stuff for ourselves and a few friends. Things haven't changed much in the last 20 years - we just have more friends.
Patagonia advertisement

2006-09-17
The ultimate stage of the spoken word is silence. The ultimate stage of climbing is not to climb.
Bernard Amy

2006-09-11
You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.
Lito Tejada-Flores

2006-09-05
I cannot imagine a sport other than climbing which offers such a complete and fulfilling expression of individuality. And I will not give it up nor even slow it down, not for man, nor woman, nor wife, nor god.
Chuck Pratt

2006-08-28
For me an adventure is something that I can take an active part in but that I don't have total control over.
Peter Croft

2006-08-21
If climbing the 8000ers is high-altitude hillwalking, then why don't [people] go and do it! I mean, it may mostly be Scottish III, but try that when you can't breathe.
Alan Hinkes

2006-08-16
It drives me nuts when people tell other people what to do. People should allow others to climb the way they want – just be specific when reporting their achievements.
Steph Davis

2006-08-07
If you're going climbing with young people, you get very, very used to seeing your climbing partner as
a tiny little dot.
Chris Bonington

2006-07-28
Soloing is the most beautiful way of climbing; no material contstrains, just you and the rock, the sun, nature; a kind of school for courage, willpower and self-confidence.
Alain Robert

2006-07-21
I don’t think I would become a climber if I were young man now [...] What is freedom to a bird if it is in the middle of a flock?
John Gill

2006-07-17
Sometimes the best gear for a climb is a good excuse.
John Sherman

2006-07-11
I've always been incapable of accepting fate, and I've always refused to die, and that has helped me to survive.
Walter Bonatti

2006-06-21
Never noticed a female monkey not climbing as well as a male - have you?
Catherine Destivelle

2006-06-08
I remember all the moves of every problem I've ever done. This is what keeps me up at night.
Dave Graham

2006-05-26
I accept the consequences of all that I do. No matter what we do with our lives, our bodies are temporary. We're all going to die, and I'd rather die climbing than doing anything else.
John Bachar

2006-05-15
We mountaineers always live with the feeling that we came on the scene too late.
Galen Rowell

2006-05-09
I'm not interested in nice days and pleasant climbs. If I'm not close to the edge, I just don't see the point.
Andy Kirkpatrick

2006-05-04
Climbing is individual thing, it's a reflection of yourself. When you put up a route you're looking at yourself. If you chisel holds, it's your responsibility, nobody else's.
Ron Kauk

2006-04-24
Is climbing, as a passion and as a sport, better off now than it was in the past? We can do harder climbs now in faster times - techniques are more refined and equipement more sophisticated - but are we really any better off?
Yvon Chouinard

2006-04-18
There are so many aspects to the sport. It never gets boring because you always do something different. Maybe you train really hard on a sport climbing and get tunnel vision for a while, but as soon as you burn out a bit, you concentrate on another aspect, like traveling. You see the world through the vehicle of climbing.
Wolfgang Güllich

2006-04-05
At its finest moments climbing allows me to step out of ordinary existence into something extraordinary, stripping me of my sense of self-importance.
Doug Scott

2006-03-24
When I was 20 I could not see myself still climbing at 30. When I was 40 I could not see myself still climbing at 50. But now I have reached 60, I know that old habits die bloody hard and that if I am able I will still be climbing at 70!
Joe Brown

2006-01-27
There is probably nothing finer than to climb free and unencumbered by equipement, reveling in the gymnastic upward movement, like Preuss or a Dulfer before you, relying only upon yourself, keeping a sharp eye on things, feeling the rock beneath your feet and fingertips.
Hermann Buhl

2006-01-27
In many climbing cultures, it seems that dirty ethics and poor style are acceptable. In mine they are not.
Leo Houlding

2006-01-27
You have to remember this was the ‘60s, when climbing was dangerous and sex was safe.
Yvon Chouinard, speech on Kendal Festival

2006-01-27
When I stripped myself completely of pressure and thoughts of sponsors and realized I only love to climb, that’s the day I did it.
Ron Kauk

2006-01-27
After thirty years of alpinism, my enthusiasm for climbing and for mountains is no less now than it was at the beginning. During these years certain things have changed, but that which got me started in the first place and kept me climbing all this time has not. I still love to climb; the mopvement of the body during climbing seems perfect to me. Alpinism takes place outdoors, and surviving in nature attracts me immensly. Alpinism provides me an opportunity to learn about the nature, to challenge and admire it. Then, there are the friends. Alpinism has helped me build some very strong friendships, including with my wife Marija and my brother Marko.
Andrej ©tremfelj

2006-01-27
Maybe Himalayan climbing is just a bad habit, like smoking, of which one says with cavalier abandon, ‘must give this up some day, before it kills me.
Greg Child

2006-01-27
The terrible thing about free soloing difficult routes that are within one’s capacity, is the chance that faced with ultimate danger and need for ultimate self-control, one’s nerve might fail and cause an error. That’s irony of it – that fear could short-circiut skill, that one would die as a direcy result of being afraid to die.
Royal Robbins

2006-01-27
Climbing is about pioneering new routes, exploring new ground, facing the unknown. Those hooked on climbing the normal routes on the eight-thousanders will miss all theat. They are wasting the best years of their climbing lives.
Doug Scott

2006-01-27
Milton, when he went blind, declared that he could now begin the real work of his life. Similarly, with the merciless passage of time reducing my phisical strengh, I find myself less able to explore the outer world, but better prepared to explore the inner.
Doug Scott

2005-10-21
Why climb? For the natural experience; for the danger that draws us ever on; for the feeling of total freedom; for the monstrous drop beneath you. It is like a drug.
Hermann Buhl

2005-10-21
Everybody free-solos. When you walk to the store, you're free-soloing. It's just a matter of the difficulty of the route.
John Bachar

2005-10-21
Good climbing and good company often go together: each is essential to the enjoyment of the other.
Tom Patey

 
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