Aviation offered such fun as crossing the continent in planes large and small, trying the whirling rotors of an autogiro, making record flights. With these activities came opportunity to know women everywhere who shared my conviction that there is so much women can do in the modern world and should be permitted to do irrespective of their sex.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

I have always loved blizzards, if only because of the driving experience – which is definitely an acquired taste.

The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.

I’m always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn’t that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I’d already been translating French poetry, I’d been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.

I love travelling full stop – so while I’ve had some harrowing instances, I never look at them negatively. Memories are made when you’re travelling – not when you’re chained to your desk.

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.

When you are younger, you want to do everything, and you go haywire.

Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.

Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.

I had a project for my life which involved 10 years of wandering, then some years of medical studies and, if any time was left, the great adventure of physics.

Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops, like the universe itself, only by perpetual discovery.

The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

It is not women’s liberation, it is women’s and men’s liberation.

Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.

Over the years, I had nurtured the hope to be able to fly; to handle a machine as it rose higher and higher in the stratosphere was my dearest dream.

Gliders, sail planes, they’re wonderful flying machines. It’s the closest you can come to being a bird.

I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women’s organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man’s world.

I love trying new things.

I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, ‚So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.‘ Most of her lifetime, it’s true. But at the time it really was a big deal.

You can do without a woman but not a typewriter.

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.

I should like to save the Shire, if I could – though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them.

Anyone who doesn’t have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much dead to me.

In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.

We’re introducing separate rooms with double beds in all of our planes so people can actually go with their partner and have a proper night’s sleep.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich.

Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.

Death is just life’s next big adventure.

Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built. And, rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.

There are a number of women who have brought about immense change in society.

Adventure is worthwhile in itself.

When I was climbing, I built up a close relationship with the Sherpa people.

Rebellion is what you make of it. When you’ve been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.

Fantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death.

I don’t want people saying, ‚Should we get a female director?‘ I want to hear, ‚Should we get a great director for this movie?‘

The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.

Life’s a bit like mountaineering – never look down.

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.

I don’t fly because of the enormous climate impact of aviation per person.

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

Exploration by real people inspires us.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.