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

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.

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

Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence — the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes — all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand.

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

I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.

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