Mountain climbing was one of Mother's favorite occupations, but she never succeeded in inculcating this passion in any of us.

Mountain climbing is my passion, and to empower women through my expeditions is the reason.

Mother set impossibly high standards for us, creating tremendous pressures and undermining our ability to accomplish whatever modest aims we may have set for ourselves.

With rare exceptions, I feel strongly that McGovern's rule is an appropriate one for us all. The longer I live, the more I observe that carrying around anger is most debilitating to the person who bears it.

No, not conquer, that is too foolish a world. Any man who scales a mountain is still but a man, a transient speck compared to the immensity and permanence of a mountain .

As de Saussure said, risk-taking brings with it its own reward: it keeps a "continual agitation alive" in the heart. Hope, fear. Hope, fear - this is the fundamental rhythm of mountaineering. Life, it frequently seems in the mountains, is more intensely lived the closer one gets to its extinction: we never feel so alive as when we have nearly died.