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The sad end he met in Afghanistan was more accurately a function of his stubborn idealism - his insistence on trying to do the right thing. In which case it wasn't a tragic flaw that brought Tillman down, but a tragic virtue.

Jon Krakauer

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Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
Ends
Tragic
Right
Mets
Flaw
Thing
Brought
Insistence
Trying
Function
Accurately
Case
Idealism
Cases
Stubborn
Wasn
Flaws
Virtue
Afghanistan

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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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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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weeping...betraying a sense of loss so huge and irreparable that the mind balks at taking its measure.
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I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.
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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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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.
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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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It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.
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Sometimes my need to love hurts-- myself, my family, my cause. Is there a cure? Of course. But I refuse. Refuse to stop loving, to stop caring. To avoid those tears, that pain...To err on the side of passion is human and right and the only way I'll live.
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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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I mean, how can you not be a feminist if you have a brain in your head? If you’re not a feminist, then you’re a problem.
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If you're not a feminist, you're part of the problem.
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I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.
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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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Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.
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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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It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty.
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You should own nothing except what you can carry on your back at a dead run.
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HAPPINESS is ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED
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