Dean Potter Quotes

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Dean Potter

Profession : Athlete

Birth : April 14, 1972

My mom was a yoga teacher back in the 1960s, so I observed a lot of the practice. It's movement of the body with awareness to the breath, which you can do with running, push-ups or walking on a piece of nylon tied between two trees.

Dean Potter

Yosemite really brings out my creativity. It's such a powerful place, there's some sort of amazing energy going on that fuels me.

Dean Potter

The wilderness is infinite in what it offers.

Dean Potter

Wingsuit BASE jumping feels safe to me.

Dean Potter

Lately I think of myself as more bird than human.

Dean Potter

We jump every day in Yosemite.

Dean Potter

The wingsuit is basically the flying squirrel suit.

Dean Potter

I've always been somewhat of a loner. I seem to take more alone time that the average person.

Dean Potter

For two summers, I lived up on the Eiger for close to 40 days. It was in a tent under this overhang near the start of Deep Blue Sea. I would drink the water that dripped from the ceiling.

Dean Potter

When I go out there untethered, the feelings that I slip I die totally overwhelms me. I am after the feeling of total control. I'm after that in all of life, and for now that's how I find it.

Dean Potter

When there's a death consequence, when you are doing things that if you mess up you die, I like the way it causes my senses to peak. I can see more clearly. You can think much faster. You hear at a different level.

Dean Potter

With my height in high school, I was really thinking basketball. But I guess I wasn't that good, because my sophomore year I didn't make the team. That was a really brutal moment for me.

Dean Potter

I just love any place that I can sit in the sun and feel the warmth of the sun's rays, and feel the connection to the planet, really tapping into how small I am and really how insignificant I am in comparison to the universe.

Dean Potter

My parents didn't want to believe their son was 200 feet up, free-soloing. They liked to go on long walks and runs, and they would go right by Joe English. Later they'd say, 'Hey, we saw someone climbing up there.' They would describe what they saw, and I'd be wearing the exact same outfit. And I'd say, 'Oh... Nope, wasn't me!'

Dean Potter

Many of my hardest climbs were done with one or both feet barefoot.

Dean Potter

My feet look like hooves-like, fake-leather bottoms and funky toenails - and I scrub them with a big stiff-bristled nylon brush you'd use for scrubbing the side of your house.

Dean Potter

I practice the art of no rules.

Dean Potter

Climbing for me is about being free. It's just to move and be uninhibited and feel and tap into the connection with nature.

Dean Potter

I grew up in the 1970s. It was a super open-minded time. I was taught through my parents and TV that everything was possible. You'd see cartoons where superheroes would fly. I always wanted to do these things.

Dean Potter

There are many people who parachute and many people who climb. I'm the only person who does both.

Dean Potter