It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

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.

Life's a bit like mountaineering - never look down.

I was not a beater of children and as a consequence I've always been, I think, very agreeable and co-operative.

I still had the same affection for New Zealand as I've always had. Didn't change at all.

Ever since the morning of May 29, 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and I became the first climbers to step onto the summit of Mount Everest, I've been called a great adventurer.

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.