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People say, 'Are you insane?' But the most successful climbers are the most calculating, with the most refined sense of risk. They're hyper-conscious of safety. They're the least insane people I know.

Like solo sailors venturing into the Southern Ocean, climbers are seduced by risk. The desire to push to a summit or scale a rock face is so strong that they consciously or subconsciously minimize safety precautions drilled into their brains.

There are two kinds of climbers: those who climb because their heart sings when they're in the mountains, and all the rest.

I love to read about the exploits of technical mountain climbers, but I've never done any vertical climbing.

Good people climb quickly - just like in a company.

But I also know in standup, there's nowhere to hide. You get on stage and you deliver, or you are eviscerated and you are thrown into a pile of bodies at the bottom of a mountain.

Filming typically takes a bit away from the climbing experience, since you have to stop all the time and shoot.

Every time I've been on Everest, people have died, though not in any expedition I was part of.

I've definitely got lists of things I'd love to accomplish as a climber. But let's face it: The world's full of climbers, and the realm of unexplored, unclimbed peaks is shrinking rapidly.

There are specific things in our world that are incredibly dangerous. Wingsuit BASE jumping is the very, very top of that. Big alpine climbing objectives are maybe right below that. I've probably had 20 friends die - people who were pretty close to me. I would say about 18 of them were because of snow.