A biography for Reinhold Messnerhasn’t been written yet.
“Mountaineering is over. Alpinism is dead. Maybe its spirit is still alive a little in Britain and America, but it will soon die out.”
“All the Yeti footprints are all the same bear. The Yeti isn't a fantastic figure. The Yeti is reality.”
“My father had been a Wehrmacht officer in the second world war and was a violent and damaged man.”
“Alpinism means you go by yourself with your own responsibility, knowing that you could die. But Everest now is more like ski tourism: preparing the piste, helping people go up, setting oxygen bottles near the summit.”
“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.”
“In the West, the art of rock climbing is growing because it has to do with less risk, good muscles. But the people seeking high goals in high places are in Eastern Europe, and they reach their goals because they are willing to suffer more.”
“When I was a small child, I began on small mountains. Now, as I am getting older, the small peaks are getting bigger. If I am lucky, some day I will end on a small peak.”
“William Blake said 200 years ago that when man and mountains meet, something big is happening. I'm searching for the 'big.'”
“By climbing mountains we were not learning how big we were. We were finding out how breakable, how weak and how full of fear we are.”
“Albert Frederick Mummery and Chris Bonington are the British climbers I most admire.”
“I would never bring a flag on the summit. If somebody is climbing for a country he is not normal, he is sick.”
“I have always said that a mountain without danger is not a mountain.”
“I'm a storyteller. I do this for the next generations. They have to know what traditional alpinism is all about.”
“Mountains are not fair or unfair - they are dangerous.”
“The mountains are dangerous. Only an unintelligent person will say they are not dangerous.”
“Each mountain in the Dolomites is like a piece of art.”
“At 30 I was not quiet enough inside myself. At 40 I was not rich enough. At 50 I was still hoping to change the world.”
“First, I am afraid to die and I love to live. But an adventure is only an adventure when there is the threat of dying.”
“The art of climbing is to go where you go knowing that you could die, but you don't die. That is adventure.”
“Ueli Steck, I'm absolutely certain, had a very strong inner drive to keep pushing. He set very high standards for himself.”