The ultimate starting point for planning any adventure or expeditionby far and away the greatest book on earth

There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing

Whenever feasible, pick your team on character, not skill. You can teach skills; you can't teach character.

There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

People who go to the polar regions are statistically less likely to die than salesmen who drive on motorways in England.

While I was serving, I worked as an adventure training officer, teaching soldiers how to ski, canoe and climb.

Rivalry is one of the factors pushing me. While my back was turned, the Norwegians managed to achieve the first Arctic crossing in winter. I didn't want the same to happen in the Antarctic.

As a rule, anything that is pretty you avoid when on an expedition in the polar extremes. Normally anything other than white means a hazard such as a crevasse.

I go on expeditions for the same reason an estate agent sells houses - to pay the bills.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good be good for something.

There is a major problem with reliance on placebos, like most vitamins and antioxidants. Everyone gets upset about Big Science, Big Pharma, but they love Big Placebo.

My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?

We played every night. Sometimes we'd stay overnight after a game, but we'd usually drive on to our next destination.

In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.

Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible.

Emotions have no place in business, unless you do business with them.

Let nature do the freezing and frightening and isolating in this world. let men work and love and fight it off.

I don't meditate in any formal way, but I often lie in bed or find myself in nature and enter into that state of quiet where I get images, feelings, or melodies.

I worked also, doing things such as our paper route and, later on, waitressing.