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

Perhaps one day I will go into space.

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

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

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

My son likes to go see mines and electric plants, or the Large Hadron Collider, and we’ve had a chance to see a lot of interesting stuff.

There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.

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

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

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

A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

I’m never going to go to Mars, but I’ve helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.

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.

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.

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’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.

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

When we understand string theory, we will know how the universe began. It won’t have much effect on how we live, but it is important to understand where we come from and what we can expect to find as we explore.

Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

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

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

I spent more time on dark ships in danger zones than any other woman in the world.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

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.

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.

When exploring London, you will come across lots of excitement by chance, so try to take everything in rather than just rushing around to all of the major tourist haunts.

Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.

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

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

From the point of view of basic physics, the most interesting phenomena are, of course, in the new places, the places where the rules do not work – not the places where they do work! That is the way in which we discover new rules.

There is no way I would ask others to go on a Virgin Galactic flight if I didn’t feel it was safe enough for myself.

Fashion has become so whatever. I don’t think there are any stones left to unturn.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

The Indians on board said that thence to Cuba was a voyage in their canoes of a day and a half; these being small dug-outs without a sail. Such are their canoes. I departed thence for Cuba, for by the signs the Indians made of its greatness, and of its gold and pearls, I thought that it must be Cipango.

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 want to give people a taste of the Caribbean, and show them the fun side of me.

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

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.

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

What’s important in Libya is, first of all, it has a good deal of oil. A lot of the country is unexplored; there may be a lot more. And it’s very high-quality oil, so very valuable.

Even Hubble hasn’t found yet the end of this universe, and we don’t know that it has any end.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

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

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.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

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

The traveller has reached the end of the journey!

With all the travel we’re doing to cold-weather cities, your mind definitely starts to wander. It gets you away from the game. Even when you arrive in a city, you’re tempted to just sit in your hotel and rest. Sometimes it’s nice to just get out and walk around, to see what’s there.

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 have a certain sexuality, and I think their bodies are beautiful, and I’m not embarrassed to explore that in a film. But there are things you get offered that are vulgar and violent – just like there’s a side of me that’s vulgar and violent.

I think all documentaries leave out areas of people’s lives. Which is good. There are areas that need not be explored.

No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time.

It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.

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.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

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

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.