Gradually, very gradually, we saw the great mountain sides and glaciers and aretes, now one fragment and now another through the floating rifts, until far higher in the sky than imagination had dared to suggest the white summit of Everest appeared.

Because it's there. (when asked why he wanted to climb Everest)

How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that musn't be daredIs this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful, soberly astonished. Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? Noand yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfactionfulfilled a destiny. To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other; such is the law.

Just to lie here in the sun with great white peaks all around me and the biggest glacier in Europe at my feet, to eat from time to time, to sleep a little and dream a great deal- it is a heavenly existence.

For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man.

What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money.

To struggle and to understand. Never the last without the first. That is the law.