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

Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

Chris would use the spiritual aspect to try to motivate us. "He'd tell us to think about all the evil in the world, all the hatred, and imagine ourselves running against the forces of darkness, the evil wall that was trying to keep us from running our best. He believed that doing well was all mental, a simple matter of harnessing whatever energy was available.

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

Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.

Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet.

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