Quote

To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily.

Jon Krakauer

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Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
Life
Comfortable
Distrusted
Beyond
Hummed
Path
Wrested
Existence
Lays
Came
Contrary
Purpose
Easily
Values
Meaning
Things
Value

More quotes by Jon Krakauer

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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.
Jon Krakauer
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That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.
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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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Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.
Jon Krakauer
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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I love being outdoors, being in the mountains and the desert, and my wife enjoys that too. That's one of the things that sustain our relationship.
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If you're not a feminist, you're part of the problem.
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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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There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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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
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If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.
Jon Krakauer
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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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When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines through you.
Jon Krakauer
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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HAPPINESS is ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED
Jon Krakauer
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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You should own nothing except what you can carry on your back at a dead run.
Jon Krakauer
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Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.
Jon Krakauer