Quotes from Nando Parrado

I would walk until I had walked all the life out of me, and when I fell, I would die that much closer to home.

Love is our only weapon. Only love can turn mere life into a miracle, and draw precious meaning from suffering and fear.

As we used to say in the mountains, "Breathe. Breathe again. With every breath, you are alive." After all these years, this still the best advice I can give you: Savor your existence. Live every moment. Do not waste a breath.

We all have our personal Andes.

So I would teach myself to live in constant uncertainty, moment by moment, step by step. I would live as if I were dead already. With nothing to lose, nothing could surprise me, nothing could stop me from fighting; my fears would not block me from following my instincts, and no risk would be too great.

My duty is to fill my time on earth with as much life as possible, to become a little more human every day, and to understand that we only become human when we love.

Even here, even as we suffer, life is still worth living....

I am no wise man. Every day shows me how little I know about life, and how wrong I can be. But there are things I know to be true. I know I will die. And I know that the only sane response to such a horror is to love.

A human being, as I've said before, gets used to anything.

I tell them I am not at peace in spite of what I suffered, but because of it.

I have suffered great losses and have been blessed with great consolations, but whatever life may give me or take away, this is the simple wisdom that will always light my life: I have loved, passionately, fearlessly, with all my heart and all my soul, and I have been loved in return. For me, this is enough.

Savor your existence. Live every moment. Do not waste a breath.

I come from a plane that fell into the mountains. I am Uruguayan. We have been walking for ten days. I have a friend up here who is injured. In the plane there is fourteen injured people. We have to get of here quickly and we don't have any food. We are weak. When are you going to come and fetch us? Please. We can't even walk. Where are we?

We were playing a game against an unknown and unforgiving opponent. The stakes were terrible—play well or die—but we didn't even know the ground rules.

We understood, intuitively, that no one in this awful place could be judged by the standards of the ordinary world.

The mountain was teaching me a hard lesson: camaraderie is a noble thing, but in the end death is an opponent each of us would face in solitude.

Things make sense. There are rules and realities that will not change to suit your needs. It's your job to understand those rules. If you do, and if you work hard and work smart, you will be all right.

Each of us realized, with a clarity that is hard to describe, that the only crucial thing in life is the chance to love and be loved.

When hope is lost, the mind protects us with denial, and my denial protected me from facing what I knew.

Gustavo and Roberto suspected gangrene, but Rafael never allowed himself to sink into self-pity. Instead he kept his courage and humor, even as the poison flowed through his system and the flesh of his leg rotted before his eyes. "I am Rafael Echavarren!" he would shout every morning, "and I will not die here!" There was no surrender in Rafael, no matter how he suffered, and I felt stronger every time I heard him say those words.

My duty is to fill my time on earth with as much life as possible, to become a little more human every day, and to understand that we only become human when we love. I

As we used to say in the mountains, "Breathe. Breathe Again. With every breath, you are alive." After all these years, this is still the best advice I can give you: Savor your existence. Live every moment. Do not waste a breath.

Haal adem. Haal nog één keer adem. Elke keer dat je ademhaalt, leef je.

I had to laugh at the arrogance of anyone who had ever thought that human beings have conquered the earth.