Unselfishness. I like to surround myself with people who are kind and have feelings for others and their problems.

I personally wouldn’t be, if I could possibly help it, involved in a serious pursuit in which there weren’t a few people who could laugh a bit about it. Because I can remember many occasions — maybe we’ve been stuck in a tent or we’re up on the side of a mountain, this heavy snow, avalanches all around us, and we can’t get up and we can’t get down, but we just sat in the tent and reminisced about occasions and days gone by and laughed about old jokes and all the rest of it. Then you really have a very good time, even though you’re sort of poised there between disaster both up and down. People who can make you laugh under those circumstances are very valuable indeed in an expedition.

A love of laughter and a shared belief that life is a dream.

Knowing when to show up and when to go home.

Watching seeds grow in the greenhouse. Drawing or reading or cooking.

Probably when our children were small, which is not to say I am unhappy now.

When I was an idiot high school student, as opposed to being an idiot adult, I used to drive very fast.

I don’t think so! You can’t really know that until the moment of your death, at which point you will probably not be afraid because you won’t be there. I have a very old friend who called me last year to say, “Okay I am done. I am not fighting this anymore. I am checking out. I am calling to say goodbye because I am not really conscious most of the time. I am cutting off the pain killers.” He seemed okay. That was not the moment of his death, but it was within two or three days.

I admire the mother of my children a great deal, because she’s interesting, smart and funny.