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I explained I wanted to descend as quickly as possible to camp IV in order to warm myself and gather a supply of hot drink and oxygen in the event I might need to go back up the mountain to assist descending climbers.

You have to know when you're at the top of your particular mountain, I guess. Maybe not the summit, but as high as you can go.

I was making a film called The White Tower at the foot of Mont Blanc - the one thing I learned from that experience was that it's more difficult to go down a mountain than to go up. A lot of people don't realize that.

I was timid and frightened as a child. Yours truly did not shin up mountains or do any other kind of adventurous stuff.

Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.

I think my first thought on reaching the summit- of course, I was very, very pleased to be there, naturally - but my first thought was one of a little bit of surprise. I was a little bit surprised that here I was, Ed Hillary, on top of Mt. Everest. After all, this is the ambition of most mountaineers.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn't the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.

We spent a few days up Ben Nevis, which is the biggest mountain in the U.K., and there was one day when we had to make a decision whether we were going to go to the summit or not. It was already getting dark, but we made the call to go and made the summit, but as soon as we got there, this blizzard just hit.