Quotes on Everest

The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this; What is the use of climbing Mount Everest? and my answer must at once be, it is no use. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever.

Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.

Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.

Ever since the morning of May 29, 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and I became the first climbers to step onto the summit of Mount Everest, I've been called a great adventurer.

I was scared many times on Everest, but this is all part of the challenge. When I fell down a crevasse, it was pretty scary.

I really haven't liked the commercialization of mountaineering, particularly of Mt. Everest. By paying $65,000, you can be conducted to the summit by a couple of good guides.

If it is a shame to be the second man on Mount Everest, then I will have to live with this shame.

Alpinism means you go by yourself with your own responsibility, knowing that you could die. But Everest now is more like ski tourism: preparing the piste, helping people go up, setting oxygen bottles near the summit.

On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.

An iceberg is water striving to be land; a mountain, especially a Himalaya, especially Everest, is land's attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded in flight, the earth mutated--nearly--into air, and become, in the true sense, exalted. Long before she ever encountered the mountain, Allie was aware of its brooding presence in her soul.

You will never, I think, fully conquer the play. Every night, you see this Everest before you. It's that two, three hours and the audience, and you'd better tell the truth.

If you have a high-way on Everest, you don't meet the mountain. If everything is prepared, and you have a guide who is responsible for your security, you cannot meet the mountain. Meeting mountains is only possible if you . . . are out there in self-sufficiency.

The way Everest is guided is very different from the way other mountains are guided, and it flies in the face of values I hold dear: self-reliance, taking responsibility for what you do, making your own decisions, trusting your judgment - the kind of judgment that comes only through paying your dues, through experience.

Specifically choose not to take a GPS. Just create a challenge. You can climb Everest or walk across Antarctica with minimal gear and still have that sense of adventure. But in terms of exploration, Google Earth has this world mapped down to the square foot.

Why climb? That's a question that baffles me. It perplexes me. I really asked that a lot on Everest. I can't justify it. I can't say it's for a good cause. All I can say is look at the history of exploration: it's full of vainglorious pursuits.

Whether we athletes liked it or not, the 4-minute mile had become rather like an Everest: a challenge to the human spirit, it was a barrier that seemed to defy all attempts to break it, an irksome reminder that men's striving might be in vain.

I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories. These days, I meet far too many young writers who try to start off with a novel right off, or a trilogy, or even a nine-book series. That's like starting in at rock climbing by tackling Mt. Everest. Short stories help you learn your craft.

Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.

Everest for me, and I believe for the world, is the physical and symbolic manifestation of overcoming odds to achieve a dream

I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there's no doubt that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics.

I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.