You don't have to be a hero to accomplish great things---to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.

George Lowe was the one who opened the mail, and George started laughing uproariously and I looked up at him in astonishment and said, "What's so funny?" And he said, "You've been given a title", and I said, "Ha, ha, big joke." I didn't believe him but, sure enough, in this letter it indicated that the Queen had given me a title.

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.

I was definitely seriously affected [with wifw and daughter deaths], no question, but I learnt to devote myself to the things that we'd been doing for years and years and slowly the pain drifted away.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

I get older I get more cantankerous, but June [Hillary] gets a bit more cantankerous, too.

Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!