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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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Jon Krakauer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: April 12
Explorer
Journalist
Mountaineer
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
Except
Dead
Running
Back
Nothing
Carry

More quotes by Jon Krakauer

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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.
Jon Krakauer
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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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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
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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Its not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.
Jon Krakauer
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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.
Jon Krakauer
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When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.
Jon Krakauer
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Heaven, for me, is one focused project - it's like a weird form of autism.
Jon Krakauer
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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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Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.
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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Short form media is reductionist by nature.
Jon Krakauer
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Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.
Jon Krakauer
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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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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
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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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...books possess an ounce-of-weight to minute-of-entertainment ratio that compares quite favorably to intoxicants.
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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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.
Jon Krakauer
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There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.
Jon Krakauer