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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.

Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.

Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.

I know when I grew up, it was, if it was daylight outside, get outside. Well, now, with the technological age of computers and everything, everyone’s inside virtually going everywhere they want to go, virtually having relationships, virtually traveling across the neighborhood, virtually going to that island.

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

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

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

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.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

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.

Time can behave like another direction in space under extreme conditions.

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

The mountains are calling and I must go.

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

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.

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.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

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.

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.

Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you’ve got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it’s a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.

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.

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.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

I don’t regard myself as a cracking good climber. I’m just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm, and I’m good on ice.

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.

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

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.

I like the idea of making a big, fun, adventure type of movie.

Gardening is not a rational act.

I’ve been everywhere in the world, seen everything, had everything a man can have.

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.

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

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

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

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

I’m a wandering gypsy.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

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.

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.

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

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

I always wanted to do what my brothers were doing. I always wanted to play the games they played and play rough and wear pants and go outside.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.

The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.

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