This thread may have some more, pardon the pun, life in it!
Here are two appropriate quotes on the subject:
When one is young and has been climbing only a few years, one's experience is limited and death is abstract. After having been around awhile, things are different.
Nicholas Clinch, A Walk in the Sky page viii
This one is fitting since Lincoln Hall died recently:
The longer you spend up high, the more likely you are to stay up there forever.
Lincoln Hall, Dead Lucky. Life After Death on Mount Everest, page 142