Tommy Caldwell Quotes

If you don't own your grunt work, can you really say you've done the climb?

Dad always taught me that it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it.

Life is all about risk and reward. Better to have struggled, to have tried, than to not have seized an opportunity at all.

A great adventure without success is far superior to a climb where everything goes as planned.

This obsession is a curious thing. Sometimes wonder about the merits of devoting so much of myself to a singular climbing objective. Much of the time it beats me down, leaves me hanging my head in despair. But then there are the moments that bring me to life. When excitement wells up inside my chest in a way that doesn’t happen in every day life. Today my fingertips were cracked and bleeding. I made no progress despite great conditions. Now I am on the ground and can hardly contain my excitement to get back on the wall. It’s a crazy rollercoaster and I owe my family and partners a great deal for encouraging me through it all.

I've always loved the idea that passion breeds success. I now realize, much to my chagrin, that telling someone who doesn't feel the fire to simply follow his passion is a little like telling someone who doesn't have any legs to run to the fridge and get you a sandwich.

I believe human relationships can and should follow the mind-set of adventure, defined not by climbing but by its greater meaning: embracing the unknown. In remaining open to others, you gain knowledge, and your perspective of life and of the world expands.

How do we build grit in our children? For my dad and me, it was a combination of bribery and exposure to minor traumatic experiences.

I feel a hint of pity for those who don’t get to experience the crisp air and excitement of mountain climbing. Are they ever really awake?

Most of us get decked somewhere along the way in life, slammed to the ground, the world looking down on us. And when—not if, when—that happens, we have a choice. Do we get back up? And when it happens again, do we get back up again? And again, and again, and again, and again? When I’m feeling clobbered by events, pounded by setbacks, or just flat-out exhausted from dealing with my own mistakes, I think of Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill, and Tommy Caldwell. Not persisting in a grim manner, full of endless suffering, but joyfully and gratefully persisting, fueled by passionately pursuing purposeful work.

All I can say is that I’m grateful that in many ways they just let me be. They didn’t want my rough start to cast a shadow on my childhood. From my earliest days they allowed me the kind of independence that many of my peers didn’t have—whether it was my period of digging, or the times in early elementary school when I went solo camping in the mountains several miles above our home. In solitude, I felt more deeply immersed in my surroundings. It felt natural.

For those of you peeking over the fence at Christianity, you don’t clean yourself up before you get in the shower. You jump right in.

Strategy is as important as ability

Pain is growth.

Maybe we can view risk like we would a drug, beneficial to the organism in the proper dose,” he once wrote. “Too much or too little may be harmful.

Through the struggle and bone-pulsing exhaustion a profound clarity had emerged, as if I had tapped into a place inside too often forgotten, where you are stripped bare and granted a glimpse into who you truly are. A place where you could look at the impossible and make it real. I’d never been so alive.

Embrace the unknown. Push through the difficult moments, work with them.

While climbing, Kevin and I were like brothers. We laughed, encouraged each other, pushed each other.

She encouraged him in her sweetest voice. “Stick with it, you can do it. You got it, push hard.

The rhythm of moving through the mountains has a way of wearing away the rough edges of the ego.

I don’t fear death. It’s how I have always been. I fear losing the people I love, but death itself, my own death, leaves a blank spot in my mind.

I always thought my deepest fulfillment came from the mountains, and that’s why climbing has been my art. But as I wrote this book I was surprised to find that the act of creating, even behind the keyboard or when speaking to an audience, feels deeply rewarding. Maybe all along the appeal had lain in the satisfaction of giving fully of myself.

Dad’s parents wanted their kids to be strong and independent. My dad told me stories of the kayak he built for himself and the adventures he had with it. His parents encouraged his curiosity.

I was drawn to Becca’s independence. She cherished her time alone and supported my desire to go on climbing trips. That absence of pressure led to a feeling of freedom.

Our relationship as being like a climb, the way we would navigate challenges as they arose, both those expected and those unforeseen, through times easy and hard, remaining independent and connected as we strove together toward the highest expression of our selves.

I found myself thinking more deeply about my own motivations and intentions. I had now been working on the Dawn Wall for parts of three years. It had become my touchstone, my opportunity for self-expression. The way it started—alone—empowered me in my quest for independence.