When you’re climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.

I like to be able to wear something that is appropriate for wherever the day takes me: to work, on a hike and then out to dinner. I like to take the formality out of the day’s schedule and be ready for any off-road detour.

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.

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

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

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’ve been here before and will come again, but I’m not going this trip through.

I love to be alone, and I did as a child as well, especially if I was outside.

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.

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.

Adventure is worthwhile in itself.

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.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

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.

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

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.

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.

I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

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

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.

A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.

I came to China to follow my star and to steep myself in the raw regions of the universe.

Exploration by real people inspires us.

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

What a great day for football, all we need is some green grass and a ball.

I jog up to the Hollywood sign every weekend. It’s fun and what a view!

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

From the boys‘ point of view, scouting puts them into fraternity-gangs, which is their natural organisation, whether for games, mischief, or loafing; it gives them a smart dress and equipments; it appeals to their imagination and romance; and it engages them in an active, open-air life.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

What I enjoy most is doing something I’ve never done before.

No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.

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.

I love trying new things.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

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 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.

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

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

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.

A hundred struggle and drown in the breakers. One discovers the new world. But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore.

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’ve always been a bit of a gypsy.

Perhaps one day I will go into space.

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

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

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

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.

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

I’m a wandering gypsy.

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

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 was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

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

Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it.

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.

Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.

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.

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