I always take the same perspective with each new adventure. I put myself in the position of being at the end of my life looking back. Then I ask myself if what I am doing is important to me.
The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.
Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.
I didn’t go up there to die. I went up there to live.
Those that reach their goals perish.
My market value increases with every outside critisism. Therefore, the frequently raised contention that I am the most highly critisized mountaineer does not disturb me in the slightest.
I was in continual agony; I have never in my life been so tired as on the summit of Everest that day. I just sat and sat there, oblivious to everything...
Bolts are the murder of the impossible.
I want to solve a climbing problem in the mountains, not in the sporting goods store.
In my state of spiritual abstraction, I no longer belong to myself and to my eyesight. I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.