Reinhold Messner

“I was the first man to climb the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplementary oxygen, but I never asked how high I would go, just how I would do it.”

“For me the Everest solo was the icing on the cake of my climbs: the highest mountain in the world, during a monsoon, and as far as possible even on a new route, of course without oxygen.”

“The best climbers no longer go to the 8000ers, but to the most difficult mountains in the world which are 6000 or 7000-meter-peaks. There they find any kind of playground. But it is a pity that the really good climbers have fewer opportunities to finance their expeditions because so much attention is taken away by the Everest tourists.”

“On Mount Everest it feels as if you are in the womb, but on K2 you are always out on the edge.”

“When I lost seven of my toes on Nanga Parbat and small parts of my fingertips I knew I'd never be a great rock climber. So I specialized in high-altitude climbing.”

“I had no ghost writers for the books - I wrote every line myself.”

“Gunther and I always shared the work. Each of us carried his own sleeping bag and tent, and porters carried the rest, until the highest camp, when we were on our own. Nobody helped us up there.”

“I learned to ski in the Dolomites at the age of five. Ski lifts didn't exist then, so I did everything on foot.”

“I like Nietzsche. I quote him in many of my books. He was born 100 years before me.”

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

“I am responsible for my brother's death. I feel the guilt of having survived. People say, 'You should be happy. You survived.' But I have this feeling that it is not right that I am alive.”

“For me, imagination is more important in climbing than muscle or daredevil antics.”

“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.”

“There are three elements of mountaineering - difficulty, danger, and exposure. Difficulty is the technical aspect of it. Danger, it is best to avoid, but some people like to increase danger to a point where their success is dependent only on luck. And exposure, which is what truly defines Alpinism, is what you face in wild nature.”

“My father blamed me for my brother Gunther's death, for not bringing him home. He died in an avalanche as we descended from the summit of Nanga Parbat, one of the 14 peaks over 8,000m, in 1970. Gunther and I did so much together. It was difficult for my father to understand what it was like up there.”

“I have been in the most dangerous of places just in order to survive. An intelligent man would stay in a safe place to survive.”

“For me, climbing has always been about adventure and that involves difficulties, danger and exposure, so I deliberately set out to climb with as little equipment as possible.”

“The museum at Ortles is dedicated to the world of ice so we wanted visitors to feel like they were inside a glacier.”

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

“Around half of the top alpinists have died climbing. Of course if I'm careful and turn back more often than the others, I can increase my chances of survival. But if I hadn't been lucky a few times, I wouldn't be here.”