I am afraid of him, of all men who are successful in love.

A light snow, a snow so faint and small-bodied that it seems nothing more than a manifestation of the cold.

Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the details, though, have long since been transformed or rearranged to bring others of them forward. Some, in fact, are obviously counterfeit; they are no less important. One alters the past to form the future.

The summer has ended. The garden withers. The mornings become chill. I am thirty, I am thirty-four -the years turn dry as leaves.

In climbing, being first-rate is part of the whole enterprise. The important climbers want to be the first man up the mountain, the one who put up the first route. You're usually only remembered if you put up the first route on a very important climb. The route might even be named after you. That's a kind of glory.

I don't fear death. I'm not obsessed with it the way everybody else seems to be.

I like to write about certain things that if they are not written about are not going to exist.