Alex Honnold Quotes

I suppose being a bit of an antisocial weirdo definitely honed my skills as a soloist. It gave me a lot more opportunities to solo lots of easy routes, which in turn broadened my comfort zone quite a bit and has allowed me to climb the harder things without a rope that I've done now.

You might get run over; you might get hit by lightning. I mean, who knows? Each day, there is a chance you might die. And there's nothing wrong with that. Every living being on Earth is facing that same existential rift.

The simple facts of Chadian life - what it takes to survive in that kind of climate with nothing but a hut and some animals - stunned me. And this made me realize, perhaps for the first time, how easy my life was compared to those of people in less privileged societies.

I've gotten over my shyness from many years of doing public events.

The diet for climbing all the time isn't really different from the diet for living. It's not like cardio sports where you're burning a bajillion calories every day.

People think I just walk up to a sheer cliff and climb it with no knowledge of anything, when in reality, there's tons and tons of information out there, and I'm already well tapped into it.

There's only a handful of chicks in the world who can climb big walls on my level.

I am a vegetarian, and I sort of aspire to vegan-hood. So far I've noticed no difference at all in my climbing, but I feel a bit healthier overall. Though that's only because I'm eating more fruits and vegetables. I think the whole protein thing is overhyped. Most Americans eat far more than we need.

I took a test once; they said I was a genius.

My sister does all this community-service type stuff in Portland that makes the world a much better place. And I make as much in a two-day commercial shoot as she does in five years, which is ridiculous.

I love red bell peppers. Bell peppers in general, really. I like to eat them like apples. They're so crunchy and delicious.

I feel that a lot of human spirituality stems from the belief that we are unique and special in the universe, but maybe we are just what happens when there is proper temperature and proper distance from the right type of star.

Free soloing is almost as old as climbing itself, with roots in the 19th century. Climbers are continuing to push the boundaries. There are certainly better technical climbers than me. But if I have a particular gift, it's a mental one - the ability to keep it together where others might freak out.

My fantasy breakfast is just a really good egg scramble. Maybe I'll add a little feta, so, uh, obviously not totally dairy-free. Definitely some vegetables, maybe some really nice tortillas; something to make it like a Mexican-style breakfast. I just really love breakfast.

I love the feeling of touching the rock, the feeling of my body going up the rock.

I crushed high school. I was a huge dork.

So many people condemn me for risk taking, but I find it sort of hypocritical because everybody takes risks. Even the absence of activity could be viewed as a risk. If you sit on the sofa for your entire life, you're running a higher risk of getting heart disease and cancer.

I live out of my van, which gives me a first-hand appreciation for power and lighting. A few years ago, I rebuilt the interior of my van to include solar panels and a battery that powers LEDs for lighting and allows me to charge my phone and laptop.

I make a fair amount of my food choices for environmental-type reasons than nutrition or taste. I'm trying to minimize impact, which is something most people don't necessarily think about when they're shopping.

Yosemite has the most impressive and accessible granite big walls in the world. The rock is amazing. And because of that, it's been the mecca for climbing in the U.S. - and the world to a large degree - for all of climbing history. It's the place to test yourself against the historic routes of the past.

I often joke that I've just become a professional schmoozer. Like, nobody cares how well I can rock climb anymore. It just has to do with how well I can schmooze.

I'm not nostalgic for my glory days in college. It was lame for me. Probably because I had no friends.

If you're climbing big routes that'll take you 16 hours, or, like, El Capitan, you have to take something like a big, robust sandwich. Climbing isn't like running or triathlons, where you have to constantly be eating blocks, gels, and pure sugar. Climbing is relatively slow, so you can pretty much eat anything and digest it as you climb.

Seven years ago, when I started free soloing long, hard routes in Yosemite - climbing without a rope, gear or a partner - I did it because it seemed like the purest, most elegant way to scale big walls. Climbing, especially soloing, felt like a grand adventure, but I never dreamed it could be a profession.

In a general sense, I think it's bad to bring too much money into climbing, since it takes away a little from the beauty of the mountains. But at the same time, I can't blame the Nepali government - or the Indian, Pakistani or Chinese, depending on where you're climbing - from wanting to capitalize on foreign climbers.

In the years after the expedition to Chad, I started the Honnold Foundation, a small nonprofit that was my attempt to do something positive in the world. I sought out projects that both helped the environment and improved peoples' standards of living. The more I researched, the more I gravitated toward solar.

I've tried to approach environmentalism the same way I do my climbing: by setting small, concrete goals that build on each other.

There's a constant tension in climbing, and really all exploration, between pushing yourself into the unknown but trying not to push too far. The best any of us can do is to tread that line carefully.

A hangboard is a little piece of wood with edges, holes, and slopes. There's different strategies for different things - hanging, varying grips, adding weight. If I do a hard finger workout, I'm definitely sore.

In climbing, sponsors typically support an athlete but provide very little direction, giving the climber free rein to follow his or her passion toward whatever is inspiring. It's a wonderful freedom, in many ways similar to that of an artist who simply lives his life and creates whatever moves him.

No matter the risks we take, we always consider the end to be too soon, even though in life, more than anything else, quality should be more important than quantity.

I'm sponsored by the solar company Goal Zero, and they were gracious enough to install panels on my van and a nice battery system for the inside. I have lights and a fridge inside the van. And of course I had panels installed on my mom's house.

'Dirtbag' is just the term we use, like a 'gnarly dude' in surfing. Within the climbing culture, it means being a committed lifer: someone who has embraced a minimalist ethic in order to rock climb. It basically means you're a homeless person by choice.

I've done a lot of thinking about fear. For me the crucial question is not how to climb without fear-that's impossible- but how to deal with it when it creeps into your nerve endings.

To be clear, I normally climb with a rope and partner. Free-soloing makes up only a small percentage of my total climbing. But when I do solo, I manage the risk through careful preparation. I don't solo anything unless I'm sure I can do it.

I've walked away from more climbs than I can count, just because I sensed that things were not quite right.

My comfort zone is like a little bubble around me, and I've pushed it in different directions and made it bigger and bigger until these objectives that seemed totally crazy eventually fall within the realm of the possible.

Anytime you finish a climb, there's always the next thing you can try.

I think there is a way to do things right to tread lightly on the world

I'm not thinking about anything when I'm climbing, which is part of the appeal. I'm focused on executing what's in front of me.

I like the simplicity of soloing. You've got no gear, no partner. You never climb better than when you free-solo.