Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.
A. C. Benson
Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Man, I was scared. I didn't know what to think. All of a sudden, I got a record climbing the charts, and I'm out in the streets. You know, workin' on the docks. And the first week, it sold something like 40,000 in New Orleans.
Aaron Neville
First scenes are super-important to me. I'll spend months and months pacing and climbing the walls trying to come up with the first scene. I drive for hours on the freeway.
Aaron Sorkin
I was always in hospital as a kid: I had a tumour on my knee, lots of broken bones. I loved climbing trees.
Abbey Lee Kershaw
At times, my insecurities were real. How am I going to get back into the team? I felt like I was climbing a ladder that was never-ending at times.
Adam Lallana
I started climbing thanks to my parents, who have been going with me on the rocks since I was a baby.
Adam Ondra
Climbing is great, and I don't think I'll ever tire of it, because there are so many different disciplines.
I shriek when I am climbing at my absolute limit, but never shriek in the warm-up or when trying the moves. No matter how terrible it might sound, it helps me.
What really motivates me to climb harder and harder is not necessarily that I want to push my limits or show who's best, but climbing harder and harder routes makes it more fun.
The harder routes you climb, the more interesting the climbing gets and the more crazy moves you are forced to figure out.
My mother and father met through climbing and it was totally natural that I would become a climber too.
I was born into a climbing family.
If I'm climbing really slow, I kind of feel like, 'Hmm, this is weird.' Like a fish without water.
I think speed climbing is kind of an artificial discipline. Climbers compete on the same holds and train on the same holds, which doesn't have much in common with the climbing philosophy in my opinion.
Because grades in climbing are subjective, I am fan of making big gaps between climbing grades.
Every December I take two or three weeks off. After an entire season of training and climbing, my body needs the break.
What I like about climbing that it's so broad. For certain periods I can focus on sport climbing and then I can shift my focus more on the bouldering or I can shift my focus on climbing in the mountains.
Climbing in the Olympics would be my dream, but I'm not so optimistic that it will make it in 2020.
I remember when I started climbing more seriously. That was when I was six years old.
I've never had problems about passionate motivation to just keep climbing and keep training and pushing.
Climbing in a beautiful location, the goal is not to power my way up but to become for that moment a part of the landscape, part of the rock.
I think in general the American scene is much more focused on bouldering, where in Europe they're more focused on sport climbing.
I think climbing deserves to be an Olympic sport, as it is one of the few natural movements - like swimming or running, things that people have been doing for a thousand years.
Bouldering on real rock, which I'm more used to climbing on, is a lot more static and requires mostly finger power, whereas competition-style boulder problems are about coordination.
To me, climbing is like eating or drinking. I have to do it; it's part of my life.
If you've climbed the first 140 meters it doesn't mean that you've succeeded; you are going to succeed by climbing the last 10 meters.
There's a constant tension in climbing, and really all exploration, between pushing yourself into the unknown but trying not to push too far. The best any of us can do is to tread that line carefully.
We are apes - we should be climbing.
I'm not thinking about anything when I'm climbing, which is part of the appeal. I'm focused on executing what's in front of me.
I am a vegetarian, and I sort of aspire to vegan-hood. So far I've noticed no difference at all in my climbing, but I feel a bit healthier overall. Though that's only because I'm eating more fruits and vegetables. I think the whole protein thing is overhyped. Most Americans eat far more than we need.
Seven years ago, when I started free soloing long, hard routes in Yosemite - climbing without a rope, gear or a partner - I did it because it seemed like the purest, most elegant way to scale big walls. Climbing, especially soloing, felt like a grand adventure, but I never dreamed it could be a profession.
Free soloing is almost as old as climbing itself, with roots in the 19th century. Climbers are continuing to push the boundaries. There are certainly better technical climbers than me. But if I have a particular gift, it's a mental one - the ability to keep it together where others might freak out.
'Dirtbag' is just the term we use, like a 'gnarly dude' in surfing. Within the climbing culture, it means being a committed lifer: someone who has embraced a minimalist ethic in order to rock climb. It basically means you're a homeless person by choice.
Climbing is definitely very much strength-to-weight ratio. At the same time, I've never dieted or restricted calories. You're just sort of mindful about not getting plump.
I've tried to approach environmentalism the same way I do my climbing: by setting small, concrete goals that build on each other.
The thing with physical preparation is I have tons of friends who train at a really high level and who can give me advice. But with mental training, I don't really know anybody who has a much better mind for climbing, I guess, so I don't really know where I would go. It's not really a limiting factor for me.
To be clear, I normally climb with a rope and partner. Free-soloing makes up only a small percentage of my total climbing. But when I do solo, I manage the risk through careful preparation. I don't solo anything unless I'm sure I can do it.
Yosemite has the most impressive and accessible granite big walls in the world. The rock is amazing. And because of that, it's been the mecca for climbing in the U.S. - and the world to a large degree - for all of climbing history. It's the place to test yourself against the historic routes of the past.
In a general sense, I think it's bad to bring too much money into climbing, since it takes away a little from the beauty of the mountains. But at the same time, I can't blame the Nepali government - or the Indian, Pakistani or Chinese, depending on where you're climbing - from wanting to capitalize on foreign climbers.
I've never really understood the criticism that climbing is inherently selfish, since it could equally be argued about virtually any other hobby or sport. Is gardening selfish?
I have a journal of everything I've ever climbed since 2005. For the entry about free soloing Half Dome, I put a frowny face and added some little notes about what I should have done better, and then underlined it. Turns out that is one of my biggest climbing achievements.
I love my climbing shoes. Virtually all of my big solos have been in the TC Pros. They are the most important thing when I'm soloing.
The diet for climbing all the time isn't really different from the diet for living. It's not like cardio sports where you're burning a bajillion calories every day.
I think it's great that so many people are enjoying climbing. I've always loved climbing; I don't see why other people wouldn't enjoy it just as much. As long as everyone does their best to respect the areas in which they're climbing, I don't see how the growth of the sport could be a bad thing.
In climbing, sponsors typically support an athlete but provide very little direction, giving the climber free rein to follow his or her passion toward whatever is inspiring. It's a wonderful freedom, in many ways similar to that of an artist who simply lives his life and creates whatever moves him.
If you're climbing big routes that'll take you 16 hours, or, like, El Capitan, you have to take something like a big, robust sandwich. Climbing isn't like running or triathlons, where you have to constantly be eating blocks, gels, and pure sugar. Climbing is relatively slow, so you can pretty much eat anything and digest it as you climb.
Filming typically takes a bit away from the climbing experience, since you have to stop all the time and shoot.
For sure, Potrero Chico is a super nice winter vacation climbing area. It's really convenient to fly into Monterrey, one of the nicer cities in Mex, and get a taxi to Potero. Then you can just live in the camping area and walk everywhere. It's muy tranquilo, as they say there.
Climbing is a journey without culmination.
