We had so much in common [with June Hillary] that we just carried on with life as we had been doing. It wasn't easy, but it was - I realise now that it was the only thing to do.

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 was a dreamer when I was at high school and even primary school. I used to dream about doing adventurous things.

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

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 am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

As a youngster I was a great dreamer, reading many books of adventure and walking lonely miles with my head in the clouds.