The FIRST question which you will ask and which I must TRY to answer is this; What is the USE of climbing Mount EVEREST? and my answer must at once be, it is no use. There is not the slightest prospect of any GAIN whatsoever.

Rainforests are not confined to the tropics: a good definition is FOREST wet enough to SUPPORT epiphytes - plants that grow on other plants. PARTICULARLY in the west of Britain, where tiny fragments persist, you can find TREES covered in RICH growths of a fern called polypody, mosses and lichens, and flowering plants climbing the lower trunks.

START with short STORIES. After all, if you were taking up rock CLIMBING, you wouldn't start with Mount Everest. So if you're starting fantasy, don't start with a nine-book series.

I want to MAKE sure I'm climbing because there's no back-up. No one in my family has a house, and, regardless of your background, if SOMEONE has a house, that means you can always come back home. When you don't have that, it's like there isn't anywhere to STAND, so you have to keep jumping.

I do ROCK CLIMBING and TENNIS.

When I WAKE up, I don't WORRY about why the MOUNTAIN is there. I just START CLIMBING.

I have GREAT people, smart people that are AROUND me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like CLIMBING a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love EVERY challenge that it brings or PRESENTS itself.

Listen, running against Senator Graham is indeed a tough climb, but it is equally a HILL worth climbing. I've faced things people have deemed impossible my entire LIFE, and this is yet ANOTHER journey where I prove that in America, the impossible is ALWAYS POSSIBLE.

I grew up on an APPLE orchard with a lot of surrounding wooded area, and I RAN everywhere. I was outside all the TIME CLIMBING trees.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is, 'What do you do to stay in shape?' My glib answer is, 'I PLAY.' But I mean it. Sure, I go to the gym, but I don't SPEND my life there. Most of my ACTIVITY is outdoors, whether it's BASKETBALL or MOUNTAIN biking or rock climbing.

Once I had a BETTER BEAT, I needed to have an even better one. And somewhere in that climbing, I LOST SIGHT of, sort of, my moral and ETHICAL underpinnings.

My life is very EXCITING now. Nostalgia for what? It's like CLIMBING a staircase. I'm on the TOP of the staircase, I look BEHIND and see the steps. That's where I was. We're here right now. TOMORROW, we'll be someplace else. So why nostalgia?

The CHALLENGES of adventure, ROCK climbing and alpinism trained me well for DEALING with the SLOW neurodegenerative malady I'm experiencing.

I could have saved my marriage if I had chosen to. But when I was forced to take a new look, I realized, 'Hey, it's not what I really WANT - it's a WEIRD thing, but CLIMBING is still at the center.'

I think I know now that you can't do this SORT of climbing and have a domestic side. You're not a practicing FATHER if you're not there. You're MAYBE a visiting father.