Roald Dahl Quotes

The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.

Children are more restricted than ever when it comes to taking physical risks - one of the ways previous generations built resilience. Thanks to health and safety mania, leapfrog, marbles and conkers are now considered unsafe.

We have made it impossible for children to fall very far—and in so doing, we have robbed them of the joys of climbing high.

I think you want to try every sport possible just to experience life.

I try to not make safe choices, but I also like to do stuff which is interesting and is sort of exciting in some way and accessible.

Pretty much any time I got a chance to do something cool, I tried to grab for it, and that's where my solace comes from.

I'm in the camp that needs to discover and take risks, sometimes it's with the promise of something special and new, sometimes it's to stay awake, either way it's much more stressful with all the uncertainty but worth the pain in the end.

Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it's starting a new business, whether it's leaving home, whether it's getting married, or whether it's flying in space.

I love when I am outside my comfort zone.

After a sheltered life, I went the other way. I wanted to prove how tough I was.

Climbing is all about freedom, the freedom to go beyond all the rules and take a chance, to experience something new, to gain insight into human nature.

I was never one of those little girls who played with baby dolls and picked names for her firstborn. I was playing in the mud with my dog, doing backflips, and climbing trees.

The concept of getting out of my routine, mixing it up, and pushing myself to live the grittiest life is something I try to incorporate every day.

I like moving, challenging myself.

A tourist follows a trail; a mountaineer finds one.

You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept.

What the majority of American children needs is to stop being pampered, stop being indulged, stop being chauffeured, stop being catered to. In the final analysis, it is not what you do for you children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.

Do you think the people who were trying to reach to the Everest were not full of doubts? For a hundred years, how many people tried and how many people lost their lives? Do you know how many people never came back? But, still, people come from all over the world, risking, knowing they may never return. For them it is worth it - because in the very risk something is born inside of them: the center. It is born only in the risk. That's the beauty of risk, the gift of risk.

children once settled and confident can mostly be left, it seems, to manage their difficulties without us. Only what we must do, always and unalterably, is hold their hand firmly in general goodwill, then they themselves seem to deal with their own particular troubles far better than we can.

Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.

Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family.

There's a certain road in life most people walk on, because it's familiar, and they can jostle to get in front place. I prefer to take a different road that's less crowded, with many forks, where you get a wider view of life. I call it 'the road less travelled'. That's where I want to be.

I would have to have some tragedy and romance in my life, but I've actually had a very cushioned, caring upbringing. I'm desperately seeking some edge. Maybe I'll find it one day.

I've always looked for challenges, and I have found plenty.