“I think viewers quite like it when I’m suffering or eating or drinking something horrible or really up against it in some quicksand or whatever.”

In the British Special Air Service, combat fitness is all about running.

My work is all about adventure and teamwork in some of the most inhospitable jungles, mountains and deserts on the planet. If you aren’t able to look after yourself and each other, then people die.

You can’t live someone else’s expectations in life. It’s a recipe for disaster.

When I take kids into the woods, I tell them, “What we’re going to do today is going to be incredibly dangerous.” And you just see 20 smiles go up.

I’m probably going to be the scruffiest Chief Scout you’ve ever had and my health and safety policy is non-existent.

You only get one chance at life and you have to grab it boldly.

Change the way you use your time, and you change your life.

Nobody wants to end up super rich and famous – but divorced. I’m always clear on that and try to stay on the right side of the line.

Faith is personal if it’s to be real.

There is little faith involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery, trust, is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return.

Alpha was the best thing I ever did. It helped answer some huge questions and to find a simple empowering faith in my life.

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word – extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me…

I was always brought up to have a cup of tea at halfway up a rock face.

It breaks my heart that my father never knew my children. He should have been around for another 25 years.

There is no feeling like coming home after danger.

I was super skeptical about doing TV. I said no three times, part of which was confidence because I didn’t really understand that world. I know how to climb mountains and do all that, but I wasn’t a TV person.

The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you’ve generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life – like drinking and sleeping, and if you’re lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice.

Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting, we will be, as when We innocently met.

The true meaning of the precepts is that one should refrain not only from drinking alcohol but also from getting drunk on nirvana.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

The alcohol had the code and mystery about it as a writer’s drug, but I’m glad that’s been debunked. But the trouble with the drinking, much as I hate to admit it, is it helped the work.

All along the line, physically, mentally, morally, alcohol is a weakening and deadening force.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I’m glad I was disabused.

The wild stuff is all so overrated. Drinking, you don’t feel good all the time. There’s a lot of down, a lot of misery.