People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

Boredom has always been a problem.

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 was certainly seriously emotionally affected [ when Louise Hillary and Belinda Hillary died], but we were building the hospital at the time and I decided that the only thing to do was to carry on and complete the hospital - and it was a jolly good hospital too, I might say. So I really did it by working and working on the things that Louise and I had been working on.

I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe But there is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.

When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn't done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.

My mother really was the strength in our family. She would sort of keep us in line and I admired her very much .