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.

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.

I did have my moments of despair. It was certainly not - it's not an experience I would like to have again. And then June came along.

When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

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

[Derek] Shackleton was a man who - it's probably arrogant to say it - but he was a little bit like me. He undertook incredible dangers and carried on over the sea and over the ice and all the rest of it. He was a remarkable man.