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.

If the going is tough and the pressure is on, If the reserves of strength have been drained and the summit is still not in sight, then the quality to seek in the person is neither great strength nor quickness of hand, but rather a resolute mind firmly set on its purpose that refuses to let its body slack or rest.

If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.

My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.

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.

June [Hillary] is a very strong influence in my life and particularly now in my ancient years there is no doubt at all: if there's a decision to be made, quite often June is the one who makes it.

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.