William Henry Ashley Quotes

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

We are in a position similar to that of a mountaineer who is wandering over uncharted spaces, and never knows whether behind the peak which he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up.

Life's full of tricky snakes and ladders.

I'm attracted to playing things that I find difficult, just because it's a journey that is much more interesting.

My Antarctic expedition is just about doable, just feasible and that's what is exciting to me. If I knew it was possible, if I knew I could do it without too much bother, I wouldn't be interested.

Climbing, for me, is all about solving the magnitude of the problem. The best projects are the ones with big question marks hanging over them.

I've always been quite careful about what I wanted to do. I've just never wanted to revisit old ground or do something that's easy. I want to do something that I would look at and go, "I don't know what to do!" The most exciting thing is when you're a bit scared, so I'm looking to find something that's really terrifying.

Adventures are not all pony-rides in May-sunshine.

You begin your journey not knowing where it will take you. You have plans, you have dreams, but every now and again you have to take uncharted roads, face impassable mountains, cross treacherous rivers, be blocked by landslides and earthquakes. That's the way my life has been.

The tunnels may be long, and twisted, and dark; but you are supposed to go through them.

We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.

I think every work is hard in different ways.

But I think traveling around and going around the world and making arrangements for moving around is the most difficult thing, 'cuz you don't know what's going to happen.

Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.

And for me, the real world involves everything: risk, danger, beauty, energy, all we meet with in the real world.

Part of making any endeavour is that each one has its own special problems. It's the nature of the process.

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

This life is like a swimming pool. You dive into the water, but you can't see how deep it is.

There's a difference between, as I always say, the destination, the end point, and the journey. The journey has a lot of twists and turns. It isn't always pretty.

The way of the pioneer is always rough.

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

Every day is an adventure.

I find that each job that I do, the thing that gets me there is when I'm not smarter than it, when I don't know instantly how that thing is made. Because if I do, then it's boring. Or it would be simple.

It's hard to pin down precise dates on these things.