As one looks across the barren stretches of the pack, it is sometimes difficult to realise what teeming life exists immediately beneath its surface.

Every day some new fact comes to light - some new obstacle which threatens the gravest obstruction. I suppose this is the reason which makes the game so well worth playing.

We took risks. We knew we took them. Things have come out against us. We have no cause for complaint.

To wait idly is the worst of conditions.

We are very near the end, but have not and will not lose our good cheer.

But we have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen. I regret only for the women we leave behind.

I have come to the conclusion that life in the Antarctic Regions can be very pleasant.

I may not have proved a great explorer, but we have done the greatest march ever made and come very near to great success.

Great God! This is an awful place.

Each man in his way is a treasure.

With great care we might have a dog's chance, but no more.

With prayer, we can endure the pain.

Memory changes as a person matures.

How much maltreatment and exploitation could someone handle before losing self-control?

I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.

The actual materials are important. A book at the nightstand is important - a light you can get at - or a flashlight as Kerouac had a brakeman's latern.

You know what, maybe I just want a different kind of life. Maybe I want to open an antique store and coffee shop, and have a different kind of life.

Do you have a brain? Then you can think your way out of it. The reason we have brains is so we can figure out how to do things.

In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.

Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

The majority of human conflict comes from people just feeling disrespected.