Quotes from Dean Potter

When I was a little boy, my first memory was a flying dream. In my dream, I flew - and I also fell. I always wondered as I got older if it was some premonition of me falling to my death.

If you're thousands of feet up with just a thin piece of webbing that you're standing on, it's really a sensation of being at one with the air.

I think everybody has a dream of flying at least once in their life. For me, it's been over and over a recurring dream.

I know my family's adventures must scare a lot of you who have rarely or never been into the wild or are afraid of heights and exposure.

I regret the negative press that has come with my climb of the Delicate Arch, but I think that there is a bigger picture. And I would hope that it could open the eyes of the public and the community to the bigger problem of what's going on, which is the mismanagement of our wild lands and the national park.

Any time I'm having difficulty, I focus on the breath, on relaxed breathing.

I'm more proud of how many times I haven't jumped than how many times I have jumped. Sometimes walking down, I've saved my life.

We call the rangers 'the tool.' They're just kind of a tool of the government machine. They don't use their own mind.

I'm 43 years old and I've never been injured doing any of my arts.

I know it's insane to think that I could fly. But to make it possible, you truly have to believe in it - to go to a place that's not accepted.

Wing-suit flying can be safe if you are highly practiced and skilled and follow the fundamental rules of questioning yourself and waiting or walking down when something doesn't seem 'right.'

The deaths of such skilled fliers like my very good friend Sean Leary make me see that if there's ever a question of safety, it's always better to wait or walk down.

My mom was a yoga teacher back in the 1960s, so I observed a lot of the practice. It's movement of the body with awareness to the breath, which you can do with running, push-ups or walking on a piece of nylon tied between two trees.

I do yoga. I meditate, and when I'm not climbing, I focus on breathing deeply all day long.

Yosemite really brings out my creativity. It's such a powerful place, there's some sort of amazing energy going on that fuels me.

We jump every day in Yosemite.

When I go out there untethered, the feelings that I slip I die totally overwhelms me. I am after the feeling of total control. I'm after that in all of life, and for now that's how I find it.

Wingsuit BASE jumping feels safe to me.

In climbing, if you injure just one finger you can't do it. But with slacklining as long as you can walk, you can walk the line.

Often in normal life I'm just constricted to what I see, maybe, and hear. But when I climb and when I'm out in the wild, other senses come to me and Delicate Arch was a free solo climb, which means I didn't have any protection and often, when I put myself in these situations, it brings out this heightened awareness which I crave so much.

When I think about doing something, I think: Will I survive a million out of a million times?

I'm so in tune with rocks and nature. On any rock around the world, if I hurt the rock, I feel like I'm hurting myself.

Doing things with serious consequences, whether it's death or seriously mangling myself, puts me in a hyper-aware state, and has become somewhat of an addiction for me.

I've always been somewhat of a loner. I seem to take more alone time that the average person.