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

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.

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

THE LONG WALK is a raw, wrenching, blood-soaked chronicle of the human cost of war. Brian Castner, the leader of a military bomb disposal team, recounts his deployment to Iraq with unflinching candor, and in the process exposes crucial truths not only about this particular conflict, but also about war throughout history. Castner's memoir brings to mind Erich Maria Remarque's masterpiece, All Quiet on the Western Front.

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

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

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