Because it is there [famous explanation for wanting to climb Mount Everest].

So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. 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. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for.

Half the charm of climbing mountains is born in visions preceding this experience - visions of what is mysterious, remote, inaccessible.

The greatest danger in life is not to take the adventure.

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

The highest of the world's mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be the lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy.

Mountaineers have often observed a lack of clarity in their mental state at high altitudes; it is difficult for the stupid mind to observe how stupid it is.