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" I really enjoy researching, and for almost every piece, I research enough to write a book. "

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" When I was 23, I climbed this mountain in Alaska called Devil's Thumb alone. It was incredibly dangerous, and I did it because I thought that if I did something that hard and pulled it off, my life was gonna be transformed. And of course, nothing happened. But I get the search for purpose. "

" Antarctica is a very alien environment, and you can't survive here more than minutes if you're not equipped properly and doing the right thing all the time. "

Doing The Right Thing

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

" I think part of the appeal of Antarctica is experiencing some sort of power, the forces of the natural world. "

" When I went to Everest, I underestimated things. I just didn't know what altitude could do. Or the cold - I especially didn't appreciate the cold. It can be just debilitating, and things can happen so quickly. "

" 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. "

" You get a compound fracture in Colorado where I live, and you can probably be in a hospital within a matter of hours, certainly within a day. "

" When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do. "

" What makes climbing great for me, strangely enough, is this life-and-death aspect. It sounds trite to say, I know, but climbing isn't just another game. It isn't just another sport. It's life itself. Which is what makes it so compelling and also what makes it so impossible to justify when things go bad. "

" The way to Everest is not a Yellow Brick Road. "

" Everest is not real climbing. It's rich people climbing. It's a trophy on the wall, and they're done... When I say I wish I'd never gone, I really mean that. "

" Short form media is reductionist by nature. "

" Heaven, for me, is one focused project - it's like a weird form of autism. "

" Most friendly fire incidents aren't investigated properly because of neglect or a natural inclination to cover up the embarrassing fact that they killed one of their own. "

" There's something about being afraid, about being small, about enforced humility that draws me to climbing. "

" There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery. "

" I guess I don't try to justify climbing or defend it, because I can't. I see climbing as a compulsion that, at its best, is no worse than many other compulsions - golf or stamp collecting or growing world-record pumpkins. "

" Once you believe that God is speaking directly to you, there is no discussion. "

" You can get a lawyer with two months off or a New York socialite who wants to play at being Lewis and Clark and put them up there, but Everest is still in charge; it can still kick butt. "

" The pieces I've written for 'Outside' magazine are definitely my best work, and they're virtually all about the outdoors. "

" Why climb? That's a question that baffles me. It perplexes me. I really asked that a lot on Everest. I can't justify it. I can't say it's for a good cause. All I can say is look at the history of exploration: it's full of vainglorious pursuits. "

" 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. "

" When I was 23, I went to Alaska by myself into the glaciers of the coast range and climbed a mountain by myself. It was incredibly reckless, incredibly stupid. But I was lucky. And I survived, and I came back to tell my story. "

" I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer. "

" Climbing Mount Everest was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life. I wish I'd never gone. I suffered for years of PTSD and still suffer from what happened. I'm glad I wrote a book about it. But, you know, if I could go back and relive my life, I would never have climbed Everest. "

" I knew that you couldn't make a living simply writing about the outdoors, so I made an effort from the beginning of my freelance career to write about other subjects. "

" The way Everest is guided is very different from the way other mountains are guided, and it flies in the face of values I hold dear: self-reliance, taking responsibility for what you do, making your own decisions, trusting your judgment - the kind of judgment that comes only through paying your dues, through experience. "

" Antarctica has this mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space. It's like going to the moon. "

" 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. "

" As I point out in the very first pages of 'Into the Wild,' I approached this book not as a normal, you know, unbiased journalist. "