Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.

I offer my expertise and experience for hire in order to help a group of people reach the summit.

I don't know what being an Everest guide means. I am a coach, not a guide.

A review of summit day photographs will show that I was clothed in the latest, highest quality, high altitude gear, comparable, if not better, than that worn by the other members of our expedition.

I travel to Jakarta, I see what an important country it is. I've been working with them for a year.

I am not sure the others are as committed as Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. I think there is more business now, and I know it will be impossible to stop this Everest business.

I cannot say to be glad or not glad to be on Everest. It is my life. I have opportunity to be here, so I am here.

How could the adventure seeker of today find satisfaction with the level of performance that was a standard set more than 40 years ago ?

I think that people ran out of oxygen and don't really know what happened up there, maybe some of them just made things up because they weren't sure what had happened.

Climbing is what I do.

People respected my experience, they hire me, they pay me what I am worth to coach their team.

Popular escapist fiction enchants adult readers without challenging them to be educated for critical consciousness.

I don't want to do the type of writing where I recite biography, parentage and education. I want to rise up from the words on the page and do something, hurt someone.

Peace of heart - without it, no good can make us happy. With it, every trial, even the approach of death, can be borne.

The Vietnam war was fought over portion size.

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

I've always loved rhyming. I love language.

Change is legitimate and inevitable, for our language is a mighty river, picking up silt and flotsam here and discarding it there, but growing ever wider and richer.

You see how wrong I go, how ridiculous I'm making myself in your eyes by keeping on guessing wrong like this! Doesn't that help you to come out with it? Come on now!

Q: When you are already in the lead, how do you to stay ahead?

It's hard to be bipolar and bicoastal at the same time.