I wasn't good at examinations, but I went to a very good secondary school - Bolton-on-Dearne - with wonderful teachers, who taught me drama and encouraged me in every way.

I met Picasso when I was a kid. I turned one of his drawings down which would be worth £37 million now. My dad wouldn't talk to me for a fortnight.

I've become quite a serious explorer: I've been to Everest three times; I'm the oldest man to reach the North Pole; and I've just been to the lost world of Venezuela.

The greatest danger in life is not taking chances. There are so many negative people wanting to grind you down, but you can't let them. If people say you are mad, you know you're on the right track.

Wishing kindness and compassion to all living creatures.

The misapprehension about me is that I am some loud, rampant maniac. I am actually very pensive and quiet.

There will be no funeral! Before I get too old and ill, I'll go to South America and live among the Pemon people and meditate. When the time is right, they can throw my body into the volcano.

I fed my Yak on my spare Cadbury chocolate 21,0000ft up Everest. It was a blonde, very sweet female Yak. I made it my pet after that.

In the news this week, the polls continue to slide for Gordon Brown and some people are saying he's dead and buried. But I think the opposite - I say GORDON'S ALIVE!

I'll never retire. The new millennium is the age of adventure as far as I am concerned. I'm going up a volcano and off into space.

My dream is to own a Hockney - I'm a Yorkshireman, and his vibrant colours are a good example of how the north-country people are vibrant and colourful.

Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.

I'd rather live life with the consequences of my choice than live with the consequences of fear.

But now having seen him which is invisible I fear not what man can do unto me.

We want Christ to hurry and calm the storm. He wants us to find him in the midst of it first.

It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it.

The rinsed foam swirled into one drain that always clogged come October when the maples dropped Canadian propaganda over everything.

It is very little to me to have the right to vote, to own property, etc., if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right

No blessing goes uncontested. It will take a long time to get your dream.

Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

If you have an ego of any sort, this course [Augusta] will take it and shove it down your throat.