“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.”

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.

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.

That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn’t about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it’s about inspiring people. That makes me really happy.

I find skydiving really hard. I broke my back while skydiving when I was in the military, and for 18 months all my nightmares were about falling.

I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, “I watch your show, I’m not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it’s about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times.”

I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it.

This famous quote hangs over my desk, as well as the desks of many people with the hubris and optimism to believe they can change the world for the better.

It isn’t necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It’s only necessary to be rich.

There is a famous Russian cartoon in which a hippopotamus, in the bush, points out a zebra to another hippopotamus: ‘You see,’ he says, ‘now that’s formalism.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you.

Actors are always outsiders. It’s necessary to be able to interpret – and that gets distorted when you become famous.

And the appreciation of fans can refuel your spiritual tank in those situations. But until you’re famous, people don’t realize how difficult that is.

I’m really into boxing. I go to a gym and I’m friends with a trainer who’s a pretty famous boxing trainer and I train with him.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be too famous too young.