I think the really good mountaineer is the man with the technical ability of the professional and with the enthusiasm and freshness of approach of the amateur.

It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it.

My mother was a schoolteacher and very keen that I go to a city school, so although it was fairly impoverished times, I traveled every day to the Auckland Grammar School.

There is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It's the intense effort, the giving of everything you've got. It's really a very pleasant sensation.

We find that the more you talk about it, the more you head off any spontaneous inspiration that might happen.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

I think that what's been holding composers back a great deal is that they feel they must have a new style every year. This, in my case, would be hopeless. In fact, it is said that I have no style at all, but that doesn't matter. I just go on doing, as they say, my thing. I believe this takes a certain courage.

It's tough when you're No. 1. You don't have any private life, you can't even walk anywhere. I think that was one reason why I lost my motivation to play tennis.