Quotes from Reinhold Messner

I became famous for the fact that I would break many, many limits. People said, 'He does all these crazy things.' But oddly it was a crazy thing only because scientists and climbers said, 'Everest and the 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen - impossible. Messner is becoming sick in his head.'

I'm a storyteller. I do this for the next generations. They have to know what traditional alpinism is all about.

Traditional alpinism is to go where the others are not going and to be self-reliant.

A tourist follows a trail; a mountaineer finds one.

I am not made for lonely expeditions. In the sixties, I climbed during the day so I wouldn't have to be alone. I finally learned to stay up for weeks in the high altitude all by my own without being afraid.

I learned to ski in the Dolomites at the age of five. Ski lifts didn't exist then, so I did everything on foot.

For me, climbing has always been about adventure and that involves difficulties, danger and exposure, so I deliberately set out to climb with as little equipment as possible.

My brother is in me. When we remember somebody else, in a certain way they are still alive. I see my brother - he is still young - looking to the Dolomites where we did our ascents. I remember those moments, so he is still together with me.

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.

Look, I do not control alpinism. But maybe I was too successful. Many in the mountaineering scene - journalists, second-rate climbers, lecturers, so-called historians - had a problem with me for many years.

For me the Everest solo was the icing on the cake of my climbs: the highest mountain in the world, during a monsoon, and as far as possible even on a new route, of course without oxygen.

I am not so proud to climb all the 8,000-meter peaks, but I was proud to climb Nanga Parbat solo. That was the most elegant thing I did.

Crossing the Gobi was a real milestone for me.

I want to look into the dark spaces in people's souls. At what happens to us when we go to the mountains.

Fame is very heavy. When there are large crowds, I'm unable to handle it.

I have always said that a mountain without danger is not a mountain.

I was 5 when I went up my first 10,000 ft mountain, with my parents, and I have been climbing ever since.

This is one of my definitions of mountaineering: to go where others do not.

The Dolomites are the most beautiful rock mountains in the world, but in a few million years they will just be desert.

There is no joy involved in climbing mountains, there is simply the challenge, the self-invented challenge, the play.

I go to the wild mountains where I am responsible for myself. Step by step I am making sure that I don't die.

For me, imagination is more important in climbing than muscle or daredevil antics.

I am my own home, and my handkerchief is my flag.

Out of all the climbers of this generation, I was the one who became known to the larger public. Many of them - not all of them, but many of them - understood they had only one chance to use me for their personal gain. And it's very easy to use me.