My favorite mode of transport is hot-air ballooning. It’s so graceful to be blown by the wind, to go where the wind takes you.

There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It’s really great.

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.

To be able to travel the world, especially to places I never thought I’d be… it’s really, you know, still fascinating for me.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

If you had your life to live over again, do it overseas.

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.

The Congo was the most difficult shoot of my life but was also maybe the greatest adventure of my life.

Adventures are to the adventurous.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

One of the best ways to see tree flowers is to climb one of the tallest trees and to get into close, tingling touch with them, and then look broad.

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

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

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

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

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

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.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

I’m not someone who sits at home and doesn’t like to go out, doesn’t like to watch movies. I like to live my life.

Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood.

I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy.

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.

The physical sensation of gliding with the wind in your face is exhilarating. That automatic activity of pedalling, when you have to be awake but not think too much, allows you to let subconscious thoughts bubble up, and things seem to just sort themselves out. And the adrenaline wakes you up if you weren’t properly alert.

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

New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.

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.

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

If I wished to do something, even if I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to make the effort with me, I would go out solo climbing. I did find solo climbing very challenging and a little frightening. You knew that you were completely on your own, and you had to overcome all the problems and possible dangers.

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

I’m a wandering gypsy.

No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.

I have wanted to fly into space for many years, but never imagined it would really be feasible.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.

I used to watch MotoGP quite a bit, I liked MotoGP. I had a motorbike before I had a go-kart and before I had a motorbike I had a quad bike but I was too dangerous, and before I did quad biking I did horse riding, so it’s been a long journey.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

I’ve been away since I was pretty much eight, traveling to the car tracks, and then going to Europe and traveling more.

Not all those who wander are lost.

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 shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.

My desire was not to pass any island without taking possession, so that, one having been taken, the same may be said of all.

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April.

Live dangerously and you live right.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

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

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

I love traveling all over the world; but it’s true: there’s nothing like home.

Death is just life’s next big adventure.

After having dispatched a meal, I went ashore, and found no habitation save a single house, and that without an occupant; we had no doubt that the people had fled in terror at our approach, as the house was completely furnished.