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

I always refused to give in if there was some argument with my father. Whether it was true or not, I refused to admit it and so often I would - well, tell lies, perhaps. I would either do that or change the story. Particularly if I felt that my father was being unjust, then I was very strongly motivated to not accept his ruling.

My grandmother I admired even more [than mother]. She was an Irish lady and a very kind-hearted person. She had a lot of talent, she painted extremely well. She was quite a strong factor in my life.

Nothing can replace courage, a resounding motivation and that little bit of luck.

Challenge is what makes men. It will be the end when men stop looking for new challenges.

I was incredibly stubborn. I mean, I believe that my father was frequently in the right, but I would never admit it, and so we did have a few set-tos on various topics; but on the whole as I got older and my father got more mature we got along reasonably well.

June [Hillary] had been doing all these things - the Himalayas and all the rest of it - so we had done things together for a long time, and, particularly as far as our Sherpas were concerned, we had a very sound, I think, philosophy. So that made it very easy for us to agree on what should be done.