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It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

Those who live in a world of human beings can only retrace their steps.

You hit those valleys sometimes and it's really frustrating. It's like getting stuck in traffic on the freeway. But there's not much you can do about it.

If you can't go one way, there's many ways to get where you're going. So you just take a step back and see beyond the wall.

If you start very far to the left, it's harder to get to the middle.

One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

There's a constant tension in climbing, and really all exploration, between pushing yourself into the unknown but trying not to push too far. The best any of us can do is to tread that line carefully.

You learn over years of expeditions that having faith, and putting one foot in front of the other, you do end up pulling off climbs that seem completely impossible. There's a certain beauty to that. It has an allure.

Once you climb to another level, you have to figure out how to sustain it.