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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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Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
Ordinary
Plane
Immutable
Achieve
Concrete
Tipping
Rest
Planes
Thrilled
Existence
Fresh
Hazards
Came
Mountain
Summit
Sorely
Purpose
Perspective
Seriousness
Incumbent
Ends
Missing
Achieving
Lent
Life
Activity
Tangible
Incumbents

More quotes by Jon Krakauer

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Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.
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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.
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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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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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What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?
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Heaven, for me, is one focused project - it's like a weird form of autism.
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I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.
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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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weeping...betraying a sense of loss so huge and irreparable that the mind balks at taking its measure.
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If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.
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When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.
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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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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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I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.
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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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Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.
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That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.
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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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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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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