In the Arctic I met some Russian sailors on a submarine and they chorused, "Gordon's alive!"

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.

Holding on and getting attached is sadness. Letting go with love opens the heart to fill it with happiness.

God did not create you to be alone. He deposited skills, knowledge, and talents in someone out there who is expected to mentor you, teach you and encourage you to go high. Go, get a mentor!

Think what you would have been now, if instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with geography and natural history!

I like people and I like hearing their stories. The way that they deliver them is always very particular and I think that their accents are integral to that.

My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty.

I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.

I sat for a moment, figuring things out, then decided to stay there. If I was on the floor, I couldn't fall down.

Reading is the last act of secular prayer.

It's a real comfort zone for me to feel alien.