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At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage. I didn't yet appreciate its terrible finality or the havoc it could wreak on those who'd entrusted the deceased with their hearts.

Jon Krakauer

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Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
Didn
Concepts
Deceased
Heart
Hearts
Finality
Appreciate
Entrusted
Youth
Havoc
Marriage
Remained
Terrible
Geometry
Stage
Abstract
Euclidean
Death
Concept
Wreak

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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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When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines through you.
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If you're not a feminist, you're part of the problem.
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The endless, agonizing recycling of what might have been, soon followed by a litany of rationalizations and self-deceptions as you struggle to reconcile the void between the person you want to be and the person you fear you are.
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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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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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Getting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable.
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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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I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.
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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.
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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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There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.
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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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What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?
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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 think I understand that religious faith which makes the holy brave and strong my strength is just somewhere else--it's in myself...I do not fear what may await me, though I'm equally confident that nothing awaits.
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