Jon Krakauer Quotes

It is easy when you are young to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to a...

Now what is history? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a v...

I had some terrific experiences in the wilderness since I wrote you last - overpowering, overwhelmin...

Unlike Muir and Thoreau, McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder nature or the w...

I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldn’t resist stealing up to the edge of doom an...

According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a su...

I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fa...

I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of cours...

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

Happiness means nothing to me. I just want to have meaning and purpose.

When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines on you..

Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together....

The monks' response was to climb into their curraghs and row off toward Greenland. They were drawn a...

Boredom presents a very real, if insidious peril. To quote Blaine Harden from the Washington post:“B...

The eight-man expedition was pinned down in a ferocious blizzard high on K2, waiting to make an assa...

I didn't doubt the potential value of paying attention to subconscious cues...problem was, my inner ...

It seems more than a little patronizing for Westerners to lament the loss of the good old days when ...

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to...

I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong... ...

It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.

Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.

From elementary school through high school, my siblings and I were hectored to excel in every class,...

It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the thi...

He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wi...

What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?

Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to c...

I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radic...

I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radic...

The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive.

Neither Emma's tears nor her rage were enough to make Joseph monogamous, however; nor were the preva...

I [Lorna Craig] would say that teaching a girl that her salvation depends on her having sexual relat...

But some things are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.

Common sense is no match for the voice of God.

…such criticism and mockery are largely beside the point. All religious belief is a function of nonr...

Rape and war, she explained are among the most common causes of post-traumatic stress disorder, and ...

When an individual is raped in this country, more than 90 percent of the time the rapist gets away w...

Statistically, the odds that any given rape was committed by a serial offender are around 90 percent...

The accused rapist, Calvin Smith, had graduated from a small-town high school the previous June, whe...

Most women are all too familiar with men like Calvin Smith. Men whose sense of prerogative renders t...

Police and prosecutors are morally and professionally obligated to make every effort to identify spe...

I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of tha...

Because I was alone, however, even the mundane seemed charged with meaning. The ice looked colder an...

When Alex left for Alaska," Franz remembers, "I prayed. I asked God to keep his finger on the should...

make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never...

Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals ...

It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders; eng...

Happiness [is] only real when shared

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to...

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change thei...

But [Everett] and McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. That’s what was great about...

The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know m...

When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.

Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extrem...

When you forgive, you love.