The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences.

There is something special about a quiet untouched forest that just pulls you into the moment. Something that no parks will ever be able to achieve. Isn't that what we're all searching for in life? To just be happy and content in the moment, to just be there in the "now"?

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.

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

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 I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

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

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