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

Jon Krakauer

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

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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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Its not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.
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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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If you're not a feminist, you're part of the problem.
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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.
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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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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 never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.
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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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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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Alaska has long been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes in their loves. The bush is an unforgiving place, however, that care nothing for hope or longing.
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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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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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Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.
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But somethings in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.
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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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If you want a blank spot on the map, you gotta leave the map behind.
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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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Short form media is reductionist by nature.
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