Quotes from Tommy Caldwell

I love that idea of mastery.

I've climbed in a lot of places, but only once in the U.K., at Stanage Edge in the Peak District.

I tend to walk through life sort of looking through a pair of binoculars, and I focus on certain things and push out the rest.

My natural abilities weren't necessarily brute power and strength. They were more about the ability to endure and not give up.

My wife always says that I function better up on a big wall than I do anywhere else in life.

I grew up a clumsy kid with bad hand-eye coordination. Yet here on El Cap, I felt as though I had stumbled into a world where I thrived. Being up on those steep walls demanded the right amount of climbing skill, pain tolerance, and sheer bull-headedness that came naturally to me.

For me, I love to dream big, and I love to find ways to be a bit of an explorer. These days, it seems like everything is padded and comes with warning labels.

Stand at the base and look up at 3,000 feet of blankness. It just looks like there's no way you can climb it. That's what you seek as a climber. You want to find something that looks absurd and figure out how to do it.

Through climbing, I've learned to find goals and work toward them. That's just the way I love to live.

I'm always climbing.

In some ways, climbing in the clouds is comforting. You can no longer see how high off the ground you are.

I have been to Switzerland a handful of times, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to climb.

I am at a climbing area called the Wendenstock in Switzerland. This area has some of the best quality multi-pitch climbing I have seen on limestone. There is about a two-hour approach on one of the steepest grass slopes I have ever seen. The setting is amazing.

Climbs like the Dawn Wall don't come around every day.

I have a very distinct goal all the time that I'm working toward, and I love the way it makes me live.

For me, I love to dream big, and I love to find ways to be a bit of an explorer.

Every climb is different. The Dawn Wall was so dry and aggressive that my fingers would dry out to the point where they would crack. So I actually had to add as much moisture as possible.

El Capitan is the most chapping environment in the world: windy, cold, super dry. I wake up twice a night and reapply lotion to my hands. We sand our fingertips to keep them smooth.

I pretty much bailed on high school. I mean, I graduated, but I wasn't even there for my own graduation.

I have always let my motivation guide me, and that has served me well. Climbing has taught me how to thrive and created a life that I feel incredibly lucky to have.

I feel this heavy weight to be a good ambassador for the sport.

I feel very lucky to be able to call my hobby my job, yet it doesn't feel like one.

If you don't have to worry about socializing because you don't like it, you can more fully immerse yourself in climbing.

When I was super young, we were hiking to the top of the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. You know, when I was in my early teens, we went to Bolivia and climbed to the tops of the highest mountains in the Alps. You know, those experiences were so exciting that when I came back to school, I was actually quite bored.