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.
Jon KrakauerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Climbing is a metaphor for life's challenges, highlighting its life-and-death stakes.
In this quote, Jon Krakauer expresses that climbing transcends the boundaries of a mere sport; it encapsulates the essence of life itself with its inherent risks and challenges. The life-and-death aspect of climbing compels individuals to confront their fears, making it both an exhilarating and justifiable pursuit, despite the dangers that sometimes lead to tragic outcomes.
Themes
ClimbingLifeChallengeRiskAdventure
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speech about overcoming life's challenges.
More from Jon Krakauer
All quotes →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.
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He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.
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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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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.
Jon KrakauerRead
Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.
Jon KrakauerRead
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