We wanted to step off our island and add the color of the third world. We got gold cigarette paper and stuck it around our teeth. We really did look like pirates and dressed to look the part.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

I love to travel, but hate to arrive.

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

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.

If you have faith in our leaders of commerce, don’t buy gold. If you do not have faith in them, maybe you should buy gold or silver.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

If I see a mountain, I just pick up and hike it.

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times.

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

Life is an adventure, it’s not a package tour.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

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.

I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing.

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

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

I enjoyed climbing with other people, good friends, but I did quite a lot of solo climbing, too.

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.

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.

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

Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.

There’s a certain amount of freedom involved in cycling: you’re self-propelled and decide exactly where to go. If you see something that catches your eye to the left, you can veer off there, which isn’t so easy in a car, and you can’t cover as much ground walking.

But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them.

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

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

I think my first thought on reaching the summit- of course, I was very, very pleased to be there, naturally – but my first thought was one of a little bit of surprise. I was a little bit surprised that here I was, Ed Hillary, on top of Mt. Everest. After all, this is the ambition of most mountaineers.

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.

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.

Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it’s cool.

I am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.

I live half the year on Necker, a tiny island in the Caribbean, and it’s always full of people in party mode. Everyone comes up to the big house, and we’ll be dancing until the early hours to the island’s band, the Front Line.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

I shall make that trip. I shall go to Korea.

I got to Africa. I got the opportunity to go and learn, not about any animal, but chimpanzees. I was living in my dream world, the forest in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. It was Tanganyika when I began.

For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.

Any East Coast road trip we have is very exciting, just being on the road, taking it all in.

It will be a killer, and a chiller, and a thriller, when I get the gorilla in Manila.

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.

We’ve climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it’s a valley of peace.

I said I would never wear my gold again because it would be insensitive and disrespectful to all the people who died and lost everything in Katrina.

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.

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.

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

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

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

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.

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

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

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.

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.

If you’re embarking around the world in a hot-air balloon, don’t forget the toilet paper.

The reason why I wear gold – I wear gold for three reasons. One, when Jesus was born, three wise men came from the east: one brought frankincense, one brought myrrh, the other one brought gold. The second reason I wear gold is I can afford it. The third reason I wear it, it’s symbolic of my African heritage.

On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

When I was little, I used to adore gold. It was something special.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.

The mountains are calling and I must go.

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.