Quotes from Bear Grylls

The area became known affectionately by the other recruits as simply: 'The asshole of the world.

These made Trucker and me look back on the summer Selection days as quite balmy and pleasant! It is strange how accustomed you become to hardship, and how what once seemed horrific can soon become mundane.

positive word of warning, though: you might find that once you start eating more of the healthy stuff, your body will no longer like it when you eat the bad stuff.

We can't always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny.

empty vessels make the most noise. It is true. The best adventurers and climbers, and the most successful people I know in life, are all great listeners, and they don't talk too much.

Mum, still to this day, says that growing up I seemed destined to be a mix of Robin Hood, Harry Houdini, John the Baptist, and an assassin. I took it as a great compliment.

We live in a world where everything tends to get oversold, then all too often under-delivers. I'd prefer to be known for the opposite.

You can't keep on top of the world for ever.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you … In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

In every potential sponsor's eyes, I was a nobody. And soon I had notched up more rejection letters than is healthy for any one man to receive.

Both faith and fear may sail into your harbor, but allow only faith to drop anchor.

It's the storms of life that make us strong, and as with all dark nights, sometimes we just have to hang on in there. Doggedly. The dawn will always come. The light will always win. And the fire, in nature, is all powerful.

There is no education like adversity. --Benjamin Disraeli

My job was simple: have faith through the storm, be determined in my actions, smart in my decisions, trusting of my instinct, and free from worrying about whether I succeeded or failed.

It was like climbing a mountain of waist-deep molasses while giving someone a fireman's carry, who, for good measure, was also trying to force a pair of frozen socks into your mouth. Nice.

None of this was in the game plan for my life. I had been hit hard, broadside and from left field, in a way I could never have imagined. Things like this just didn't happen to me. I was always the lucky kid. But rogue balls from left field can often be the making of us.

Meals were often eaten standing up, and I wasn't quite sure why they had bothered to issue us with beds, we got to see them so little.

I was in and out of the hospital almost daily from then on. They X-rayed, poked, and prodded me, and then they did it again for good measure.

Sir Edmund Hillary, Everest's first conqueror, once said that the mountains gave him strength. I'd never really understood this until now. But it was intoxicating. Something deep inside me knew that I could do this.

If we were caught pointing at a map with a finger, instead of a blade of grass or something sharp, we had been threatened, by the unforgettable Sgt Taff, that he would 'Rip that finger off and beat you to death with the soggy end!' It's a threat that I enjoy passing on to my boys when we are reading a map together nowadays.)

Their hands were also huge – two massive leathery mitts that looked like hairy wicket keeper's gloves.

I learned two very strong lessons from them: the grass isn't always greener elsewhere, and true love is worth fighting for.

Adventure should be 80 percent 'I think this is manageable,' but it's good to have that last 20 percent where you're right outside your comfort zone. Still safe, but outside your comfort zone.

We soon reached a dam and had to make a decision. We knew it was forbidden to cross a dam, in the same way that it was forbidden ever to use a footpath or forestry track. (Unless it was part of the dreaded morning battle PT.) This was a simple rule on Selection to make sure that you got used to navigating properly and that the going underfoot was always hard, which it inevitably always was. (In fact I, still to this day, feel a bit guilty if I go hiking on a footpath--old habits die hard.)