Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.

Short form media is reductionist by nature.

It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificient activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.

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.

I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.

Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb had been blunted, in short, by a bunch of small satisfactions that added up to something like happiness.

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