Quote

I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.

Jon Krakauer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
Absolutes
Absolute
Illusion
Promise
People
Seduced
Fanatics
Intrigued

More quotes by Jon Krakauer

Image
The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.
Jon Krakauer
Image
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.
Jon Krakauer
Image
I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.
Jon Krakauer
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.
Jon Krakauer
Image
If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.
Jon Krakauer
Image
Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.
Jon Krakauer
Image
...books possess an ounce-of-weight to minute-of-entertainment ratio that compares quite favorably to intoxicants.
Jon Krakauer
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.
Jon Krakauer
Image
Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.
Jon Krakauer
Image
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
Image
HAPPINESS is ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED
Jon Krakauer
Image
Short form media is reductionist by nature.
Jon Krakauer
Image
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
Image
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.
Jon Krakauer
Image
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