Bear Grylls

“I don't thrive on stress. I love lying on the deck on our houseboat reading a book.”

“Life has taught me to be very cautious of a man with a dream, especially a man who has teetered on the edge of life. It gives a fire and recklessness inside that is hard to quantify.”

“Sometimes it's hard for us to believe, really believe, that God cares and wants good things for us and doesn't just want us to go off and give everything up and become missionaries in Burundi.”

“And Jesus, the heart of the Christian faith is the wildest, most radical guy you'd ever come across.”

“The hardest thing about my job isn't the snake bites or the crocodiles, it's being away from my children. I have a really religious satellite phone call every day back to the boys, wherever we are, whatever time zone, to say goodnight.”

“To me, adventure has always been to me the connections and bounds you create with people when you're there. And you can have that anywhere.”

“I love making healthy lean foods delicious - that's an art!”

“To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.”

“My faith is an important part of my life and over the years I've learnt that it takes a proud man to say he doesn't need anything. It has been a quiet strength and a backbone through a lot of difficult times.”

“You can't become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again, a good number of times. There's life in a nutshell.”

“Accidents on big mountains happen when people's ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.”

“I hang out all the time with kids and young scouts and I never meet kids who don't want adventure.”

“You're not human if you don't feel fear. But I've learnt to treat fear as an emotion that sharpens me. It's there to give me that edge for what I have to do.”

“The SAS Reserve tends to be made up of former paratroopers and commandos who still want a challenge, but it is open to civilians.”

“There is little faith involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery, trust, is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return.”

“I mean, in the last few months alone, I've been pinned in a big set of white-water rapids, been bitten by an angry snake in a jungle, had a close escapewith a big mountain rockfall, narrowly avoided being eaten by a huge croc in the Australian swamps, and had to cut away from my main parachute and come down on my reserve, some five thousand feet above the Arctic plateau.When did all this craziness become my world?It's as if - almost accidentally - this madness had become my life. And don't get me wrong - I love it all.The game, though, now, is to hang on to that life. Every day is the most wonderful of blessings, and a gift that I never, ever take for granted.Oh, and as for the scars, broken bones, aching limbs and sore back?I consider them just gentle reminders that life is precious - and that maybe, just maybe, I am more fragile than I dare to admit.”

“Look, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, sometimes you need a bit of luck.”

“Adventure should be 80 percent 'I think this is manageable,' but it's good to have that last 20 percent where you're right outside your comfort zone. Still safe, but outside your comfort zone.”

“You can't live someone else's expectations in life. It's a recipe for disaster.”

“I always had a really natural faith as a kid. Where I knew God existed and it felt very free and pretty wild and natural, and it wasn't religious.”