I found fear stimulating. Particularly after you've done something that you'd been frightened of at the time, but you carried through and did the job.

It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

I never talk about being leaders and all the rest of it. I can only remember one or two occasions in my life when I actually issued orders, and I felt thoroughly miserable after doing it.

It's all bullshit on Everest these days.

Motivation is the single most important factor in any sort of success.