114 Quotes by Dean Potter

If you're thousands of feet up with just a thin piece of webbing that you're standing on, it's really a sensation of being at one with the air.

Most people in my life who didn't follow their dreams weren't happy. Their lives seem so strange.

When there's a death consequence, when you are doing things that if you mess up you die, I like the way it causes my senses to peak. I can see more clearly. You can think much faster. You hear at a different level.

I know it's kind of a strange thing I'm talking about, but another part of me truly believes I can fly, like somehow my mind can figure it out.

I had trouble focusing as a child and I still sort of do, but when you climb and you're going to die if you fall, you have 100 percent focus. That's a rarity in life and a gift to have something that brings you that clarity.

I want to live to be a grandfather, or to be doing this when I'm 80.

In 'The Prophet,' Kahlil Gibran says something about perfection only being reached by stripping something to the point of nakedness. That's the ultimate project: the naked climber doing the greatest climb.

Part of me says it's kind of crazy to think you can fly your human body. Another part of me thinks all of us have had the dream that we can fly. Why not chase after it?

The deaths of such skilled fliers like my very good friend Sean Leary make me see that if there's ever a question of safety, it's always better to wait or walk down.