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“People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron... If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”
― George Mallory, Climbing Everest: The Complete Writings of George Mallory

“Because it's there.”
― George Mallory

“Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

“This forms the nub of a dilemna that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

“When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the seafloor, the skeletal remains had turned into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.”
― John McPhee, Annals of the Former World

“How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared. . . Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful; soberly astonished. . . Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No. . . and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction. . . fulfilled a destiny. . . To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other; such is the law. . .”
― George Mallory, Climbing Everest: The Complete Writings of George Mallory

“For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man.”
― George Mallory

“My mind is in a state of constant rebellion. I believe that will always be so.”
― George Mallory

“But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad...”
― Walt Unsworth, Everest: A Mountaineering History

“I had been hired to prepare the mountain for the people instead of the other way around.”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“Everest attempt at sixty-two, three weeks after undergoing surgery for kidney cancer, marathon des Sables six months after it was amputated fingers and toes, be measured by the diagonal of Fools four weeks after ablation of a metastasis to the lung, is this possible? Cancer does not stop your life, giving up your dreams or your goals, it is simply a parameter to manage, no more, no less than all the other parameters of life.
How to ensure that the disease becomes transparent to you and your entourage, almost insignificant in terms of trip you want to accomplish? This is precisely the question that Gerard Bourrat tries to answer in this book. To make a sports performance, to live with her cancer, to live well with amputations, the path is always the same: a goal, the joy of effort, perseverance and faith.
This book does not commit you to climb Everest, to run under a blazing sun, walking thousands of miles, it invites you to conquer your own Everest.”
― Gérard Bourrat, L'éverest, Le Cancer, La Vie

“The end of every road is only the beginning of a new one, even longer and more difficult”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“There is not enough luck in the world. That night I got somebody’s share.”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“It was possible that when the climbers were ready, the mountain wouldn’t be”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“In truth, there seems to be an Everest-sized mountain of hypocrisy over the issue of garbage. Trekkers and mountaineers want the advantages of a western lifestyle in an environment that can't deal with its detritus and then they feel guilty about the consequences.”
― Ed Douglas, Chomolungma Sings the Blues

“What the continents had in common was far less important than what was different. To be successful on the peaks it was more important to learn intuitively and adapt to the new cultures and climbing conditions, than to ascend relying on past experience.”
― Robert Mads Anderson, To Everest Via Antarctica: Climbing Solo on the Highest Peak on Each of the World's Seven Continents

“Think of it as a blind date. All you initially have
in common at the bottom is the reason you’re there, the top of the mountain.”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“You can not identify the height of the Everest unless you conquer.”
― M.Rehan Behleem

“Success doesn’t just happen;
it doesn’t pop out on its own.
Success is all about
the choices you make.
It’s a balancing act between
what to choose and what not to.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“Breaking Everest by Stewart Stafford

On this Everest of déjà vu,
We broke up in avalanches,
Rote tumbling and tedium,
Dead stares at the bottom.

Climbers phoning in motion,
A poke for the All-Seeing Eye,
Pack mules heaving baggage,
Tense on the musical ski lifts.

Even with three tiny travellers,
That peak hosted no summits,
Cast-off hairshirt strait-jackets,
The wound-licking began afresh.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“For Sherpas here, the land is everything. Losing two of our most brute, bold men within the first week reminds me that Everest is a spirit to be honored, not a peak to conquer.

I've been asking myself if I'm strong enough to keep up, to make it to the top, but maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe I should be asking if I'm soft enough to listen. To yield. To trust something deep inside, something in my bloodline, my heritage, that undercuts logic and strength.”
― Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, In the Shadow of the Mountain

“Some people think that with nowhere higher to climb, reaching the top of Everest is the end. But it is just the mid-point. The real journey begins in the long, dangerous descent that lies ahead.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“I would climb the mountains frequently to tune in my nature with theirs.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“A dim sun shines faintly through the clouds. I gaze up at the mountain I must climb, then lower my eyes to look at my trembling legs. My legs are fragile but my spirit remains undaunted. Step by step, I will traverse upward. I will be there.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“Even Mount Everest cannot replicate the mountains of the mind. They’re very tricky to negotiate and so tough to conquer.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Don’t let the bird of hopelessness build a nest on your head. Have you forgotten that the peak of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world was once part of the ocean floor?”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Mountains stir our souls, their stature dwarfing us. But remember, not every mountain ahead is ours to climb.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“Sandy Hill Pittman was hysterical.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster

“Sandy Hill Pittman was hysterical.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

“For whatever reason, commercial mountain guide, Anatoli Boukreev raced down ahead of his group—which in fact had been his pattern throughout the entire expedition, as, his employer, Scott Fischer’s final letters and phone calls from Base Camp to Seattle made clear.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster