"Public lands are our public commons, breathing spaces in a country that is increasingly holding its breath. ... These are places of peace and renewal, where landscapes of beauty become landscapes of our imaginations. We stand before a giant sequoia and remember the size of our hearts instead of the weight of our egos." — Terry Tempest Williams "Public lands are our public commons", The New York Times
"Kai Whaley during his unplanned descent of Shaolin (V17), Red Rock National Conservation Area, NV. (I love the phrase "unplanned descent" to describe falling!)" — American Alpine Club Guidebook XIV
"I don't like fear. I want to win against it. It keeps me alert, but I won't obey it." — Jan Farrell, speed skier Hard Pack Ski Magazine, Issue 5, "The Speed Racers"
"In Zen, not knowing is considered a form of wisdom. Being willing to accept uncertainty brings you closer to the truth of life. When you no longer hold fast to fixed ideas or outcomes, to what you want to happen, you see more clearly what is happening." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"I have to believe in complete healing. I have to surround myself with people who believe it, too. I have to see it and feel it and live it. I have to train my mind to heal my body...This is how it works: my mind transporting me back to a time when I was healthy, and, at the same time, ahead to when I will be again...I dream about walking. The setting and characters change, but the plot is always the same: I’m injured and on crutches and then, without thinking, I take one free step and then another...I no longer refer to my left leg as my broken leg: it’s my healing leg...Recovery isn’t something that will happen. It is happening...Healing isn’t a mysterious, passive process that’s happening to me, but one that I am creating." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"The air is thinner, clearer, the views longer. You can see every which way, in all directions—bowls and cirques, high ridges, mountains beyond mountains. You are in the air, almost flying. The climb has been taxing, but here at the edge of the sky, the mountain gives you all its energy, fills you with a kind of exhilaration you rarely feel down low, in the trees. Here you are closer to the sky. You are sky." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"It would be so much easier to stay home now, but then I wouldn’t find out what happens next." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"“So where’s your motor?” I answer without thinking, “In the river beneath my feet.” ... Beneath my shoes was solid ground, but the mountains are fluid, alive. They have a flow, an energy older and wiser that can carry me...I’d felt it with my whole being on Hope Pass, my legs absorbing energy from the earth, my torso bending to the slope of the hill, the slope showing me how to run on water beneath my feet, my body flowing uphill the whole way. The energy wasn’t mine, it was bigger than me. It was all around, limitless." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"'Your body is ready. Your body knows what do. Trust that and get out of your own way.'" — Natalie via Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"The first rule of rivers is the first rule of Zen. Don’t fight the current. Go with it, not against it." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final." — Rainer Maria Rilke Go to the Limits of your Longing
"The words that really matter in the wake of passing are the stories we tell of our loved ones. Stories fill up the space they leave behind and we can see their faces and hear their laugh and reach into something shapeless and touch them. So long as we tell stories, they can never really die." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Grief can be an astonishingly beautiful response to loss and the pain of it can stir a renewed appreciation for life. It makes food taste better and feelings feel deeper and colors brighter. It amplifies love. Loss can imbue us with such profound gratitude for what we have, and I will always marvel that the void of death can be what makes us feel most alive." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Every climb feels impossible until you stand on top." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"'Asking for help isn’t giving up,' said the horse. 'It’s refusing to give up.'" — Charlie Mackesy The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
"Life isn’t a cognitive exercise. It’s an action sport. Understanding isn’t enough. You have to go out and do the damn thing." — Psychedelic therapist Lauren Taus via Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Getting a permit to float the Middle Fork without a guide, as our friends did, isn’t like winning the lottery. It is winning the lottery." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"It’s strange how we miss things the most just as they’re about to end." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Dreams have a funny way of becoming reality when you put yourself in the position for them to happen." — Katie Lambert Alpinist Magazine, Issue 66, "Magic Line"
"If you set out with purpose to do something amazing, you invariably find that circumstance will lend a hand." — Andy Kirkpatrick Kirkpatrick's Climbing Notes, "Hard Things Easy"
