Reinhold Messner: "All the 8,000ers have one, nothing else and that is a main summit. According to his or her personal experience, each person must decide by himself or herself where they have been. Always for me the most important thing is not where the others have gone but the experience lived through".

Erhard Loretan: "This 'race' is a little outside the objective. I do not believe that it is a race between climbers rather it is between the "media". Perhaps I am mistaken. If people want to play, in my opinion, the climber must reach the highest point and without oxygen, of course. In fact, if you have a minimum of ethics, your heart will say to you if your climbing is clean or not. Personally, I went twice to Shishapangma because the first time, in 1990, the route to the main summit was dangerous."

Krzysztof Wielicki: "If we agree that the 14 8,000ers' main summits means that "the highest point" then this always the main summit".

Carlos Carsolio: "To complete the 14 8,000ers one talks about reaching main summits of the fourteen mountains. These mountains have 21 independent summits of more than 8000 meters, and a considerable amount of "antesummits" (he considers an antesummit the central top of Shishapangma), if these are subsidiary summits then there are 22). That is to say, to be able to complete the fourteen, you must reach the highest point of each one. An interesting challenge for the generations of the future is to get to complete 21 summits, one of them even remains unclimbed - the Mid Lhotse summit".

Juanito Oiarzabal "The summit is the summit and peculiarly it agrees with the highest point "

The climbers that have reached the Summit of all 14 8000 Meter Peaks.

• Reinhold Messner (ITA) in 16 years 1970/86, at age 42.
• Jerzy Kukuczka (POL) in 8 years 1979/87 at age 41.
• Erhard Loretan (SUI) in 13 years 1982/95 at age 36.
• Carlos Carsolio (MEX) in 11 years 1985/96 at age 33.
• Krzysztof Wielicki (POl) in 16 years 1980/96 at age 46.
• Juan Oiarzabal (Spain) in 14 years 1985/99 at age 43.
• Sergio Martini (ITA) in 24 years 1976/2000 at age 49.
• Park Young Seok (Korean)
• Hong-Gil Um (Korean)
• Alberto Inurrategui in 10 years 7 months and 16 days to achieve this feat.

All the peaks were climbed without bottled oxygen.

The Quest for 14: Climbers who has completed 10 or more (different) 14 8000 meters peaks and are still alive...

Climbers that has died with 10 or more of the 14 8000 meter peaks include: Felix Inurrategi, Marcel Ruedi, and Benoit Chamoux.