"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Airman's Odyssey
"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"
"There is little room for others when we’re consumed by ourselves." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"The life before had happened to me as childhood happens to everyone. The mark of adulthood is when we happen to life. Thirty years old. I was now an adult, with or without my consent, and adults are responsible for their lives. I wasn’t going to become someone I didn’t choose to be." — Jedidiah Jenkins To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
"This, I believe, is why time moves so slowly as a child – why school days creep by and summer breaks stretch on. Your brain is paying attention to every second. It must as it learns the patterns of living. Every second has value. But as you get older, and the patterns become more obvious, time speeds up. Especially once you find your groove in the working world. The layout of your days becomes predictable, a routine, and once your brain reliably knows what’s next, it reclines and closes its eyes. Time pours through your hands like sand." — Jedidiah Jenkins To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
"We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"There are many ways to embrace a wave in your ocean. Roll with it, let it shake your world. Capsize under it and come up for air when you are ready. Or just maybe you BE the wave – force indelible change on a complacent reality, shattering the notion of 'what is' and forcing it to be 'what used to be.'" — Lauren Bello Okerman Sisu Magazine, Issue 6, "Line and Wave"
"Let us not throw up our hands when it’s time to roll up our sleeves." — Vice President Kamala Harris Speech, January 6, 2024
"It is one of the most futile emotions we entertain – mourning something that never existed as if it had been promised to us." — Carolyn Highland Wild Snow, "A Grand Traverse Gone Awry"
"Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting, in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be." — Zig Ziglar
"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine." — Darren Hardy The Compound Effect
"Was I the person, the climber, that I believed I had been? Those events shaped who I was, and now they were receding into the distance." — Chris Jones Climbing Fitz Roy, 1968
"What’s the point of being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes?" — 4th Doctor Doctor Who, "Robot"
"[Age] is in your head. It’s whatever you believe. You know, my parents were old when they were in their 40s; that’s the way they thought. The way they acted. It was their assumptions about life. I’m not like that; I think you can talk yourself into anything. Age is just a number, as long as your body is willing. Age is meaningless." — Dierdre Wolownick (Alex Honnold's mom) Adventure Journal
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." — Dumbledore Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
"The more years you spend on this planet, the more you realize that for all of the gains we have made, we’ve got so far to go. It’s like looking in the rear view mirror – what’s behind us is actually closer than it appears. Despite this unfortunate reality, we persevere with an unwavering courage, moving beyond the barriers created by others, by harnessing a fire that burns deep inside." — Jen Gurecki Sisu Magazine, Issue 1
"Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind." — Bruce Lee
"But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars." — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The carefree timelessness of my youth was rattled in my twenties. A kind of panic set in. Time became visible. Each choice I made began to feel more and more final, as if every choice was the death of all the others. Millions of doors were locking behind me as I passed them in the hallway. I felt that age thirty – adulthood – was coming like winter. Am I missing out? Am I making the right decisions? Am I becoming the person I want to be? It often dawns too late that we have only one life, only one path, and the choices we make become the story line of our lives." — Jedidiah Jenkins To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
"The journey you travel on your feet is less important than the distance you cover in your head." — Mishka Shubaly
