Brian Blessed: I've become quite a serious explorer: I've been to Ever...

You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest.

Brian Blessed

danger-in-life adventure thinking

I met Picasso when I was a kid. I turned one of his drawings down which would be worth £37 million now. My dad wouldn't talk to me for a fortnight.

Brian Blessed

drawing dad kids

The greatest danger in life is not taking chances. There are so many negative people wanting to grind you down, but you can't let them. If people say you are mad, you know you're on the right track.

Brian Blessed

danger-in-life track people

I'll never retire. The new millennium is the age of adventure as far as I am concerned. I'm going up a volcano and off into space.

Brian Blessed

volcanoes space adventure

In the news this week, the polls continue to slide for Gordon Brown and some people are saying he's dead and buried. But I think the opposite - I say GORDON'S ALIVE!

Brian Blessed

opposites people thinking

My parents taught me honesty, truth, compassion, kindness and how to care for people. Also, they encouraged me to take risks, to boldly go. They taught me that the greatest danger in life is not taking the adventure.

Brian Blessed

honesty kindness adventure

The misapprehension about me is that I am some loud, rampant maniac. I am actually very pensive and quiet.

Brian Blessed

pensive loud quiet

There will be no funeral! Before I get too old and ill, I'll go to South America and live among the Pemon people and meditate. When the time is right, they can throw my body into the volcano.

Brian Blessed

volcanoes america people

My dream is to own a Hockney - I'm a Yorkshireman, and his vibrant colours are a good example of how the north-country people are vibrant and colourful.

Brian Blessed

dream country people

I fed my Yak on my spare Cadbury chocolate 21,0000ft up Everest. It was a blonde, very sweet female Yak. I made it my pet after that.

Brian Blessed

chocolate pet sweet

I have marvelous dreams! I meet Buddha, I meet Jesus, I meet Mohammed. I constantly dream of space, stars and planets: we are the children of stardust.

Brian Blessed

stars dream jesus

In the Arctic I met some Russian sailors on a submarine and they chorused, "Gordon's alive!"

Brian Blessed

submarines alive sailor

I went to drama school but it was very hard to get work until I was made assistant stage manager.

Brian Blessed

assistants drama school

My brother Alan - who was seven years younger than me - died from leukemia when he was 52. He never knew a day's good health - I wish I could have given him some of my good health. But he was always so cheerful and sweet.

Brian Blessed

brother sweet years

My father was a coal hewer from Goldthorpe, a coal-mining village in South Yorkshire. He played for the Yorkshire second team as an opening fast bowler - to me he was a gorgeously heroic man. He helped form a union and closed down the Barnsley seam because it was seeping gas, and saved many, many lives.

Brian Blessed

team men father

People talk about the difference between radio acting, TV acting and stage acting, but I think it's all the same. For instance, when I played Vultan in 'Flash Gordon,' I put as much energy into it as I would with 'King Lear' - it's all part of the same thing.

Brian Blessed

differences kings thinking

When I was a child, I wanted to... go into space! To go to Mars. I wanted to explore and explore and explore. I wanted to go to the Lost World in South America - I was heartbroken to discover there were no dinosaurs; I still don't accept it.

Brian Blessed

heartbroken children america

Life is a re-discovery.

Brian Blessed

life-is discovery

I love Scotland - I was made an honorary Wallace after my work on 'Braveheart,' you know. If I have two or three days off, I love nothing more than driving up there and climbing around Glencoe.

Brian Blessed

scotland climbing two

I wasn't good at examinations, but I went to a very good secondary school - Bolton-on-Dearne - with wonderful teachers, who taught me drama and encouraged me in every way.

Brian Blessed

teacher drama school

I've become quite a serious explorer: I've been to Everest three times; I'm the oldest man to reach the North Pole; and I've just been to the lost world of Venezuela.