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

Without the possibility of death, adventure is not possible.

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.

I cry alot-I dont know why, but it just helps me. I cry over bad and good stuff-sometimes sadness can be beautiful

Enlightenment is just the beginning, later on come other skills . . . patience, a forgiving nature, extreme attention . . . .

hindsight is not a strategy.

As long as he has a house with two bathrooms. I swear to God, I don't care if he's Jack the Ripper.

Making music, if youre a real musician, you carry on, regardless in this world.

I don't much believe in bumper sticker characterizations of foreign policy.

Map out your future, but do it in pencil.

We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise last but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally.

You have to make a joke every 10–15 minutes. It’s a way of keeping up morale.

Every great action is extreme when it is undertaken. Only after it has been accomplished does it seem possible to those creatures of more common stuff.