Quotes from Dean Potter

With my height in high school, I was really thinking basketball. But I guess I wasn't that good, because my sophomore year I didn't make the team. That was a really brutal moment for me.

In 'The Prophet,' Kahlil Gibran says something about perfection only being reached by stripping something to the point of nakedness. That's the ultimate project: the naked climber doing the greatest climb.

Chasing after the unattainable is the fun part.

I have this unbeatable move where no matter what happens I can catch the line - it's the number one thing I practice - so my philosophy there is martial arts based, never putting myself in a position where I can receive a lethal blow. I haven't missed catching the line for over fifteen years.

The knowledge that in a split second that I could be dead almost overwhelms me. But it is through constant exposure to that fear that keeps me alive and lets me do what I love.

The decision to go into the mountains and hike with your dog, and wingsuit with the dog, can bring catastrophe. These are decisions we make because they fulfill us, but they also have danger.

I got a lot of inspiration and encouragement from my friend and ultra-runner Scott Jurek.

It's one of the most fundamental desires of man, of being free and flying unhindered, and it really seems to go a lot with our founding fathers' principles of freedom.

'The Man Who Can Fly' captures my quest for true human flight. This pursuit of the unknown and following dreams that may or may not be attained are the most important principles we portray in the National Geographic Special.

The attractive thing about rock climbing: There are no rules.

I had a unique style, I didn't care about how things were done in the past, and I just did what felt natural, 'No Rules' once again.

There are probably people who think I'm crazy for doing what I'm doing and they're probably right. Compared to them, compared to the way they think and feel and are so bound by norms then I am crazy, but insane or enlightened, it's all pretty close. I would say it's just how you look at it.

I'm addicted to the heightened awareness I get when there's a death consequence. My vision is sharper, and I'm more sensitive to sounds, my sense of balance and the beauty all around me. A lot of my creativity comes from this nearly insane obsession. Something sparkles in my mind, and then nothing else in life matters.

I know it's kind of a strange thing I'm talking about, but another part of me truly believes I can fly, like somehow my mind can figure it out.

It's going to hurt if I fall. I don't want to deal with that, I want to prove that it can be done for a long life, until I'm an old man.

I've made the safest slack line ever using Vectran. It's the strongest flexible fabric in the world.

Free soloing is just the most natural way man can climb. It's just using your hands and feet without any use of protection or rope to ascend.

My fear is with the onset of mainstream interest in extreme sports that diversity will be subdued and eventually snubbed out within our great outdoor community. Shouldn't we question when the leaders of our community try to manipulate our culture into a mono crop?

I don't have thoughts of an afterlife. I think dying is like when you swat a fly - it's over.

My views are not concrete. I'm open to change.

I want to fly for the rest of a very long life.

People think I'm a lunatic or adrenaline junkie, but that's not what's going on with me. The beauty is what I'm most concerned with.