When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.

I hate being called an 'icon.' I just don't like it. That's all there is to it.

My mother was a schoolteacher and very keen that I go to a city school, so although it was fairly impoverished times, I traveled every day to the Auckland Grammar School.

I think the really good mountaineer is the man with the technical ability of the professional and with the enthusiasm and freshness of approach of the amateur.

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.

I'm past carrying out some of the wishes that I would have wanted to do before, but I still dream about what I would like to do if I was able to do so.

Waihi Beach. It's a lovely beach, and we're right on the shore and I get a lot of pleasure out of waking up in the morning and hearing the waves roll in.