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

We don't live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and that is what life is for.

Why climb Mount Everest? Because it's there.

We will stomp to the top with the wind in our teeth.

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.

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

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.