Jon Krakauer Quotes

When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines through you.

Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.

The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only...from human relationships. God has placed it all around us...and all you have to do is reach for it.

The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.

Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.

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 want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.

I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth.

I was dimly aware that I might be getting in over my head. But that only added to the scheme’s appeal. That it wouldn’t be easy was the whole point.

If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.

Antarctica has this mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space. It's like going to the moon.

I mean, how can you not be a feminist if you have a brain in your head? If you’re not a feminist, then you’re a problem.

But somethings in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.

Its not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.

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 no more potent force than religion.

Antarctica is a very alien environment, and you can't survive here more than minutes if you're not equipped properly and doing the right thing all the time.

What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?

HAPPINESS is ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED

Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.

Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th Century invention and I don't want one. You don’t need to worry about me; I have a college education. I’m not destitute. I'm living like this by choice.

Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.

I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong... to measure yourself at least once.

It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.

I think part of the appeal of Antarctica is experiencing some sort of power, the forces of the natural world.

But [Everett] and McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. That’s what was great about them. They tried. Not many do.

According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at all.

But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care.

Children can be harsh judges when it comes to their parents, disinclined to grant clemency.

In climbing, having confidence in your partners is no small concern. One climber's actions can affect the welfare of the entire team.

You should own nothing except what you can carry on your back at a dead run.

That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.

Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.

Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.

The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.

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 if you're too driven you're likely to die.

Once you believe that God is speaking directly to you, there is no discussion.

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 of grooving. (Quoting Scott Fischer)

To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily.

There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.

Common sense is no match for the voice of God.

weeping...betraying a sense of loss so huge and irreparable that the mind balks at taking its measure.

Short form media is reductionist by nature.

I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.

If you're not a feminist, you're part of the problem.

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 want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.

When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.

...books possess an ounce-of-weight to minute-of-entertainment ratio that compares quite favorably to intoxicants.

I love being outdoors, being in the mountains and the desert, and my wife enjoys that too. That's one of the things that sustain our relationship.