Explore Quotes by Jon Krakauer

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only...from human relationships. God has placed it all around us...and all you have to do is reach for it.

Military investigations are designed not to find anyone guilty. And you can't investigate up the chain of command, which is a huge impediment.

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.

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.

I'm not even religious, but I get fanaticism. I get the appeal of 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Military investigations are designed not to find anyone guilty.

Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.

I've had a lot of crappy jobs, but one of my favorites was working as a commercial fisherman in Alaska. What I loved about it was, you got paid for what you caught.

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.

Short form media is reductionist by nature.

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.