Once I've decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.

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.

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.

Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.

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!

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.

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.