Quotes from Edmund Hillary

I found fear stimulating. Particularly after you've done something that you'd been frightened of at the time, but you carried through and did the job.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I've - if it did occur - that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

Environmental problems are really social problems anyway. They begin with people as the cause and end with people as the victims

It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it.

I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.

There is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It's the intense effort, the giving of everything you've got. It's really a very pleasant sensation.