Quotes about Mt. Everest

[See our Factoids Archives for some interesting trivia about Mt. Everest.]

• But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care. — Jon Krakauer
• Wouldn't Mallory be pleased if he knew about this. — Sir Edmund Hillary, descending in 1953
• We will stomp to the top with the wind in our teeth. — George Mallory, 1924
• Because it is there. — George Mallory (1886-1924), answer to the question: 'Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?'
• The highest of the world's mountains, it seems, has to make but a single gesture of magnificence to be the lord of all, vast in unchallenged and isolated supremacy. — George Mallory, 1924
• Altitude is the great equalizer. — Anonymous
• Hey, look, don't worry too much about me. — Rob Hall, his last words via satellite radio-phone to his pregnant wife in New Zealand
• I have climbed my mountain, but I must still live my life. — Tenzing Norgay
• We encourage young people to go out and exceed thier goals. Everest is an icon of that. — Neil Beidleman
• 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.... — Reinhold Messner, 1980
• I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits. — Reinhold Messner
• Mountains are not fair or unfair, they are just dangerous. — Reinhold Messner
• I can't understand why men make all this fuss about Everest—it's only a mountain. — Junko Tabei
• Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top; it is the willpower that is the most important. This willpower you cannot buy with money or be given by others...it rises from your heart. — Junko Tabei , 1975 after becoming the first woman to climb Everest
• Don't forget it's really just a big pile of rocks. — David Breashears
• We have founded a support group for Everest climbers called Everest Anonymous; members can call each other up for support when they're thinking about returning to the mountain. — David Breashears
• Mountains don't kill people, they just sit there.... — Ed Viesturs
• Getting to the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory. — Ed Viesturs
• We agreed that this was going to be no ordinary climb. For the time being, Everest was rather more than a mountain. — John Hunt, leader of the '53 expedition
• The wind is the appalling enemy. It is mind-destroying, physically-destroying, soul-destroying.... — Chris Bonnington, 1975
• There was no more grass, no flowers, not even any moss: dusty granite blocks covered the ice and an occasional grinding groan reminded us that we were on a slow-moving glacier. — Chris Bonnington
• We just lay on our bellies in the snow, gasping and immobile. — Peter Habeler, 1978, first oxygenless ascent [After] the Hillary Step...
• The end of the ridge and the end of the world... then nothing but that clear, empty air. There was nowhere else to climb. I was standing on the top of the world.. — Stacy Allison, first American woman to summit Everest
• I must make top, you know . I know want go up more but, is not possible to make sponsors if no success here. — Mark Batard, tried to reach summit in 24 hours
• No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time. — Na Nook
• All the winds of Asia seemed to be trying to blow us from the ridge. — Peter Boardman, 1975, about the South Summit
• You've climbed the highest mountain in the world. What's left? It's all downhill from there. You've got to set your sights on something higher than Everest. — Willi Unsoeld
• You feel like you're one giant lung, as if breathing is all there is to life. — Mike Groom
• Everest is a matter of universal of human endeavor, a cause from which there is no withdrawl, whatever loses it may demand. — G.O. Dyrenfurth
• Everest for me, and I believe for the world, is the physical and symbolic manifestation of overcoming odds to achieve a dream. — Tom Whittaker