The mountains are dangerous. Only an unintelligent person will say they are not dangerous.

An account of an expedition is not a novel. Therefore an authentic account can never be given, let alone written down by someone who was not present.

For years I was a rock climber and nothing else. I went to school, yes, and university, yes, but in my heart I was a rock climber.

I am not so famous. I'm known in a few countries like Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and around the Alps. Some climbers in Beijing know my name, and some in America, but I am not really famous. It's very relative, my fame.

Climbing is more of an art than a sport. It's the aesthetics of a mountain that compels me. The line of a route, the style of ascent. It is creative.

All nationalism is dangerous; all religions are dangerous.

In politics, you have to compromise from morning to evening. Democracy is the art of compromise.

I have always said that a mountain without danger is not a mountain.

There is no joy involved in climbing mountains, there is simply the challenge, the self-invented challenge, the play.

I want to look into the dark spaces in people's souls. At what happens to us when we go to the mountains.