114 Quotes by Dean Potter

I don’t have a lot of pressure on myself to be successful. I’m more of an artist. I just try to make myself more a part of the most beautiful painting as possible. And enjoy it.

The most beautiful experiences I’ve had climbing are when everything is simplified. Free soloing is the simplest thing, until you learn to fly or to walk on air – which I feel is all possible.

I have a strong feeling for it, and I think us as humans perceive all of that – the pressure change and the moon and the wind and whether a storm is moving in on us – if we just are close enough to nature.

Each time I saw a cliff, I wondered whether I could free solo it. My life shaped itself around the understanding that falling means I die. To break the paradigm I had to empty out my essence, rummaging for fundamentals I thought were gone forever.

The moment before I jump is filled with anxiety and what-ifs. But then as soon as I enter the air, I’m filled with this calmness and that’s the main attraction to it. That’s why I do these death-consequence pursuits or arts.

My mom was a yoga teacher back in the 1960s, so I observed a lot of the practice. It's movement of the body with awareness to the breath, which you can do with running, push-ups or walking on a piece of nylon tied between two trees.

Wing-suit flying can be safe if you are highly practiced and skilled and follow the fundamental rules of questioning yourself and waiting or walking down when something doesn't seem 'right.'

For two summers, I lived up on the Eiger for close to 40 days. It was in a tent under this overhang near the start of Deep Blue Sea. I would drink the water that dripped from the ceiling.

It's going to hurt if I fall. I don't want to deal with that, I want to prove that it can be done for a long life, until I'm an old man.