Quotes from Jon Krakauer

He was alone," as James Joyce wrote of Stephen Dedalus, his artist as a young man. "He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight.

As the dissimilar results from these two government surveys suggest, it is impossible to state with certainty how many women are raped each year. Quantifying the prevalence of sexual assault is a highly speculative exercise because at least 80 percent of those who are assaulted don't report the crime to authorities.

For Satan was the founder of this black race, for he came to Cain after God had taken away his power to procreate the children of righteousness, and showed him how he could place his seed into animals, and the seed of animals into other animals, for he did corrupt the seed of the earth in this manner, hoping to thwart the works of God.

Desert Between the Mountains: Mormons, Miners, Padres, Mountain Men, and the Opening of the Great Basin, 1772–1869 by Michael S. Durham.

My father was a volatile, extremely complicated person, possessed of a brash demeanor that masked deep insecurities.

they share this common idea that a rapist is a guy in a ski mask, wielding a knife, who drags women into the bushes. But these undetected rapists don't wear masks or wield knives or drag women into the bushes. So they had absolutely no sense of themselves as rapists and were only too happy to talk about their sexual behaviors.

the vast majority of rapes, well over eighty percent, are actually non-stranger rapes." One of the other myths, he added, was the widely held belief that "a non-stranger assault is less serious and has less serious harm

President George W. Bush, who believes he is an instrument of God and characterizes international relations as a biblical clash between forces of good and evil.

Several were still pubescent girls, such as fourteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball. Although she acquiesced when the prophet explained that God had commanded her to become his plural wife—and that she would be permitted twenty-four hours to comply—Helen later confided to a friend, "I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.

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... I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong in my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing...I came to appreciate that mountains make poor recepticles for dreams.

I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?

There was too much of the Puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriage.

Despite the fact that Uncle Rulon and his followers regard the governments of Arizona, Utah, and the United States as Satanic forces out to destroy the UEP, their polygamous community receives more than $6 million a year in public funds.

When I write books, I've learned not to have any expectations that I'm going to change the world.

Short form media is reductionist by nature.

HAPPINESS is ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED

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.

It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.

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

The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences.

When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines on you..

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 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.

Everest has always been a magnet for kooks, publicity seekers, hopeless romantics and others with a shaky hold on reality.