All Jon Krakauer Quotes
- Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb… Actually Living
- I think I understand that religious faith which makes the holy brave and strong; my strength is just somewhere else--it's in myself...I do not fear… Await
- It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificient activity, I… Across
- Its not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong. Always Necessary
- Now what is history? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a view to overcoming death. That’s why people… Centuries
- Sometimes my need to love hurts-- myself, my family, my cause. Is there a cure? Of course. But I refuse. Refuse to stop loving, to… Avoid
- It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you… Assume
- I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But… All
- Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among… All
- Common sense is no match for the voice of God. Common
- the sad end he met in Afghanistan was more accurately a function of his stubborn idealism--his insistence on trying to do the right thing. In… Accurately
- If you're bumming out, you're not gonna get to the top, so as long as we're up here we might as well make a point… Bumming
- Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an… All
- As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be… Borrow
- He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did… Absolute
- But somethings in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself. Free
- My reasoning, if one can call it that, was inflamed by the scatter shot passions of youth and a literary diet overly rich in the… Call
- The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything. Change
- It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to… Beauty
- At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage. I didn't yet appreciate its terrible finality or… Abstract
- Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. Bad
- Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality. Been
- This forms the nub of a dilemna that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but… Climber
- Alaska has long been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes… Alaska
- If you don't take it, I'm going to throw it away," Alex cheerfully retorted. "I don't want to know what time it is. I don't… Alex