Without the possibility of death, adventure is not possible.

The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.

Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.

I always take the same perspective with each new adventure. I put myself in the position of being at the end of my life looking back. Then I ask myself if what I am doing is important to me.

I didn’t go up there to die. I went up there to live.

Those that reach their goals perish.

In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.

I want to solve a climbing problem in the mountains, not in the sporting goods store.

Bolts are the murder of the impossible.

My market value increases with every outside critisism. Therefore, the frequently raised contention that I am the most highly critisized mountaineer does not disturb me in the slightest.

I was in continual agony; I have never in my life been so tired as on the summit of Everest that day. I just sat and sat there, oblivious to everything.

Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.

We hope the world will act in the spirit of enlightened self-interest.

I know they say the first love is the sweetest but that first cut is the deepest

All I am I owe to my mother.

I feel that one must deliberate then act, must scan every life choice with rational thinking but then base the decision on whether one's heart will be in it.

As your life is in His hands, so are the days of your life. But don’t let the sands of time get into the eye of your vision to reach those who sit in darkness. They simply must hear.

I'm surprised by how much I remember.

Yes, I feel I've got something to say. If people want to listen, that's great, and if they don't, that's their choice.

It is from the Himalayan forests and ecosystems that I learned most of what I know about ecology.

All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it.