Violence always seems to me the worst form of tyranny. It deprives people of their rights, including the right to live.

It's all about a war of social impulses and beliefs that is as powerful in its way as a big hurricane.

[In mountaineering, if] we look for private experience rather than public history, even getting to the top becomes an optional narrative rather than the main point, and those who only wander in high places become part of the story.

The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany.

To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.

To be hopeful means to be uncertain about the future, to be tender toward possibilities, to be dedicated to change all the way down to the bottom of your heart.

People rescue each other. They build shelters and community kitchens and ways to deal with lost children and eventually rebuild one way or another.