I would like to be remembered for the schools and hospitals and bridges and all the other activities that we did with the Sherpas. Unquestionably, they are the things I feel that were the most worthwhile of everything I was involved in.
I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.
I think global warming is a very real problem for our world. I've seen the changes that have taken place in the Antarctic, in the Himalayas, where the natural ice has sort of faded away, and there's no doubt in my mind that we're living in a strange world, a world which is not easy to understand or handle, But there's nothing you can do about, you just have to live your life as best you can.
Once I've decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.
I never talk about being leaders and all the rest of it. I can only remember one or two occasions in my life when I actually issued orders, and I felt thoroughly miserable after doing it.
I still had the same affection for New Zealand as I've always had. Didn't change at all.
My grandmother I admired even more [than mother]. She was an Irish lady and a very kind-hearted person. She had a lot of talent, she painted extremely well. She was quite a strong factor in my life.
I've always hated the danger part of climbing, and it's great to come down again because it's safe.
I have no desire to live anywhere else but New Zealand. I've had the good fortune to travel widely around the world, but New Zealand is home - and I like to be here. I'm proud to be a New Zealander.
When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn't done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.
It's all bullshit on Everest these days.
Waihi Beach. It's a lovely beach, and we're right on the shore and I get a lot of pleasure out of waking up in the morning and hearing the waves roll in.
[Derek] Shackleton was a man who - it's probably arrogant to say it - but he was a little bit like me. He undertook incredible dangers and carried on over the sea and over the ice and all the rest of it. He was a remarkable man.
I'm past carrying out some of the wishes that I would have wanted to do before, but I still dream about what I would like to do if I was able to do so.
I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer.
Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.
If I'm selecting a group, the first thing I look for is a record of achievement . . . If (candidates achieve) in small things, there's a very good chance they'll perform well in big things.
I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.
My mother was a schoolteacher and very keen that I go to a city school, so although it was fairly impoverished times, I traveled every day to the Auckland Grammar School.
Some day I'm going to climb Everest.
I was certainly seriously emotionally affected [ when Louise Hillary and Belinda Hillary died], but we were building the hospital at the time and I decided that the only thing to do was to carry on and complete the hospital - and it was a jolly good hospital too, I might say. So I really did it by working and working on the things that Louise and I had been working on.
I would have said that during the early days of my life there was never a moment when I wasn't fit. We worked extremely hard on the beekeeping line, and both my brother and I used to compete, particularly when we were collecting honey. We would each have an 80-pound box of honey and we would race up the hill on the Tuakau track and race back down. We just raced all the time, and we used to keep very fit indeed.
I'm definitely a Queen supporter. She was great.
I have to admit I do get a bit depressed at times and you know I think about the good old days when I was charging ahead.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I've - if it did occur - that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.
