Quotes from Reinhold Messner

William Blake said 200 years ago that when man and mountains meet, something big is happening. I'm searching for the 'big.'

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.

I left many different mountains but always the gods gave me a chance to go back. I was always going with a quiet foot.

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

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

Anyone who ever witnessed Ueli Steck flying up the Eigerwand would know that he was always in control of his actions. He was always moving with immense precision and a sense of safety.

The cliches that circulate in the German media about Joachim Sauer are a total fallacy. The fact is that he's his own man. He's witty, he's profound, he can be incredibly funny, and he's an extremely bright guy.

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

I started the whole 'Into Thin Air' thing - nothing I'm proud of.

Climbing has so much more culture than all other activities put together. There is no culture in tennis, just a few names, a few dates. No big culture in soccer. But we have thousands of books, great philosophers, thinkers, painters.

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.

There are periods on the mountain when you exist between living and dying, sometimes for days. I went through that with my brother on Nanga Parbat. It is very difficult, but it is the most intense experience. And always after such experiences, when I was back among people, I felt I had been reborn.

I can't tell people to love mountains. They have to find their own way.

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.

The true alpinist doesn't want any infrastructure, he wants to go into the wild. And the odds of getting killed there are relatively high. And most people are sensible enough not to want that.

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.

My father had been a Wehrmacht officer in the second world war and was a violent and damaged man.

All nationalism is dangerous; all religions are dangerous.

In climbing there is no question of right or wrong. Moral right or wrong, that is a religious question, they have nothing to do with anarchical activity, and classical mountaineering is a completely anarchical activity.

I am a South Tyrolean. I identify with this land.

Ninety per cent of the tourists climbing big mountains are on 10 mountains - and one million mountains in the world are empty.

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.

Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.

I was in continual agony; I have never in my life been so tired as on the summit of Everest that day. I just sat and sat there, oblivious to everything.