I didn’t go up there to die. I went up there to live.
The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.
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.
Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous.
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.