Tim Bevan Quotes

Meeting Australian mountaineer and author Tim Macartney-Snape when I was 16 in 1994 had a big impact on me. His ascent of Everest from sea to summit captured my imagination.

The art of climbing is the art of survival. The best climber is the man or woman going in the most crazy places but surviving.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

I'm kind of obsessed by Everest and all those men that mountaineer and take themselves to extreme limits.

When I took on Everest, I'm not there for the views.

I never was content unless I was trying my skill...or testing my endurance.

Because it's there. (when asked why he wanted to climb Everest)

You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest.

Climbing is unadulterated hard labor. The only real pleasure is the satisfaction of going where no man has been before and where few can follow.

If your work isn't exciting, doesn't stir the emotions, where's the challenge? Where's the progress if you always play it safe?

I've been out of my comfort zone a lot, and it makes me more vulnerable, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and don't think I would go skydiving!

Mountaineering is one of the most difficult sports - we are away from routine life for days, living in tents, and it requires high degree of physical and mental strength.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

I spent the night on a sliver of rock high up on the east face of Long's Peak, climbing with Tom Frost, and slept at the icy feet of the Dru, listening to the lightning crack above me and the thunder roll down. I only did it to write about it. I would never go up on the Grotto Wall for fun.

I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.

I was scared many times on Everest, but this is all part of the challenge. When I fell down a crevasse, it was pretty scary.

I want to be scared. I want to keep taking insane risks. I want to be scared because you're going to grow through that whether you want to or not. I don't want to play the same guy. I want to keep throwing curveballs to you guys and keep telling stories.

I'll try anything once. It's always good to see peoples' faces surprised - surprised that I race, or that I surf, that I trekked through the Himalayas. As long as I don't die, I'm good.

Not to be too grandiose about it, but in a way I see myself like Sir Edmund Hillary. The water was my Everest.

Travel can also be the spirit of adventure somewhat tamed, for those who desire to do something they are a bit afraid of.

You really can expand the boundaries of your life and do risky things and prove yourself by doing them.

If I know I make this much trouble, I never climb Everest.

Why climb? That's a question that baffles me. It perplexes me. I really asked that a lot on Everest. I can't justify it. I can't say it's for a good cause. All I can say is look at the history of exploration: it's full of vainglorious pursuits.

I'd never been one for leaving the comforts of home. That person wasn't me; I didn't spend my formative years youth-hostelling round Rwanda or climbing Everest in a tie-dye playsuit to raise awareness of something or other.

It's like a living process. You start out, and you see the Eiger north face, and you think, 'That's impossible.' Then you start to dream. Then you climb the Eiger north face. Then maybe you go to the Himalaya.