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Now what is history? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a view to overcoming death. That's why people discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves, that's why they write symphonies.

Jon Krakauer

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Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
View
Waves
Views
Infinity
Century
Exploration
Explorations
History
Centuries
Electromagnetic
Write
Mathematical
Symphonies
Death
Overcoming
Riddle
Writing
Wave
Systematic
People
Discover
Symphony

More quotes by Jon Krakauer

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If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.
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When a young person is moved by a passion and feels compelled to go on this sort of quest, I think you have to let him. You can't stop him. In our culture we don't have formal rights of passage like in some ancient cultures. Subjecting yourself to risk... may be something you have to go through to be a man or a woman.
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Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.
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If you don't take it, I'm going to throw it away, Alex cheerfully retorted. 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 that matters.
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Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, drives our curiosity, fuels our love and carries our friendship, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limit.... A passion for life is contagious and uplifting. Passion cuts both ways.... Those that make you feel on top of the world are equally able to turnit upside down.
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The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It's like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance.
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What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?
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But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care.
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When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.
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The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.
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It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.
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Achieving the summit of a mountain was tangible, immutable, concrete. The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life. I thrilled in the fresh perspective that came from the tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end.
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Heaven, for me, is one focused project - it's like a weird form of autism.
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Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.
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That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.
Jon Krakauer
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But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.
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The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.
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Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.
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I was dimly aware that I might be getting in over my head. But that only added to the scheme’s appeal. That it wouldn’t be easy was the whole point.
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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.
Jon Krakauer