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.
Edmund HillaryI was not a beater of children and as a consequence I've always been, I think, very agreeable and co-operative.
Edmund HillaryThere are lots and lots of challenges that I wished - at the time - that I had done.There are lots of occasions where there were exciting things to be done but for some reason or another it was physically impossible for us to do them. I still wouldn't mind if I was able to go down into this most impressive valley in the Antarctic, but of course those things are beyond me now.
Edmund HillaryWhile on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.
Edmund Hillary