Hillary: A View from the Top - The Early Years

I plunged on through the cloud until I could plunge on no further and I realised that I’d reached the summit of the mountain.

– Ed Hillary, on climbing Tapue-o-Uenuku

For me it was a very exciting moment. I’d dreamed about things, I’d read exciting books, but I hadn’t actually done anything, and now for the first time I really felt that I’d done something.

– Ed Hillary, on climbing Mount Ollivier

By the end of the first week I was much more friendly with the ants than I was with any of my student friends.

– Ed Hillary on eating lunch on his own at Auckland Grammar

I returned home in a glow of fiery enthusiasm for the sun and the cold and the snow – especially the snow.

– Sir Ed on the impact of a school trip to Ruapehu, from his 1955 book High Adventure

Everybody in the valley was talking about my attempt, and everybody thought that by this time I’d be well and truly dead.

– Ed Hillary on skeptics’ opinions of his weekend ascent of Mount Tapue-o-Uenuku