I'm sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you're afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

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.

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.

I started to become more active and when I was at Auckland Grammar I went for the first time to the mountains. I went to Ruapehu and for the first time I saw snow. I had never seen snow before and for 10 days the group of us had a marvellous time.

I have a number of heroes I still have warm feelings about. [Derek] Shackleton, for instance, was definitely, and still is, one of my great heroes.

I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.

No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.