Whenever feasible, pick your team on character, not skill. You can teach skills; you can't teach character.

There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing

There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

People who go to the polar regions are statistically less likely to die than salesmen who drive on motorways in England.

The ultimate starting point for planning any adventure or expeditionby far and away the greatest book on earth

While I was serving, I worked as an adventure training officer, teaching soldiers how to ski, canoe and climb.

Rivalry is one of the factors pushing me. While my back was turned, the Norwegians managed to achieve the first Arctic crossing in winter. I didn't want the same to happen in the Antarctic.

As a rule, anything that is pretty you avoid when on an expedition in the polar extremes. Normally anything other than white means a hazard such as a crevasse.

I go on expeditions for the same reason an estate agent sells houses - to pay the bills.

You can change the world with a hot bath, if you sink into it from a place of knowing that you are worth profound care, even when you're dirty and rattled.

The Pantheon was the first church I'd ever seen that had an open view to God

It seems to me that our presidential elections have turned more into a popularity contest than a real analysis about who really should be President of the United States.

Even the stupidest cat seems to know more than any dog.

Photography was the first available demonstration that light could indeed exert an action sufficient to cause changes in material bodies.

What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors.

I just said to myself, 'Damn, I'm a great player.'

It's not selfish to give TO yourself as much as you give OF yourself

I don't see the point of having 80 million people online if all they are doing in the end is talking to ghosts in the suburbs.