"Often the idea of change is more difficult than the change itself." — Sarah Marquis Wild by Nature: From Siberia to Australia, Three Years Alone in the Wilderness on Foot
"Well shit, at least you tried." — Unknown
"But there is this: They also won't tell you that you'll be strong. That you will rediscover what excites you, what breaks your heart, and how to love yourself again. And that by honoring yourself, you are honoring those who hold their own story close to themselves and cannot speak up. The paradox of resilience is that it provides you the strength and power to navigate through hardship, but it doesn't make you invulnerable to pain. Instead, resilience builds your capacity for radical compassion and hope." — Kathy Karlo
"The rope comes tight to my harness and I follow it into the maze of snow flutings. My movements feel in tune with our environment. A rhythmic tempo takes over my thoughts: I simply kick, step and breathe. Our line of ascent feels like water flowing uphill, naturally rolling through the terrain. An expression of life rather than a fight for survival." — Michael Gardner Alpinist Magazine, Issue 77, "Worth the Weight"
"Perhaps [Charles] Pratt's ultimate wisdom took the form of acceptance: understanding that veiled depths surround us. Which, like looming exposure, might suddenly jump at you. Or like serendipitous beauty, might delight. Both sensations are perfectly OK, equally wondrous. And the shapes they assume depend more on your mindset than on the thing itself." — Doug Robinson Alpinist Magazine, Issue 74, "Letters to a Young Climber"
"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." — Wayne Dyer
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ... Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." — Viktor Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning
"Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity." — Unknown
"It all boils down to fear. Fear is such a powerful emotion. Sometimes it keeps us safe, but more often, it keeps us from taking the risks that propel us forward. On the flip side, it can be a fantastic motivator." — Julie Hotz She Explores, Episode 2, "On Fear: Human Powered Travel"
"When the air chills, I, too, watch myself turn, temporarily, to crystal. Rime slowly forms along the loose strands of my hair, in thicker and thicker flowers of white and silver, encrusting my lashes until I have to rub my eyes or blink hard to keep my vision clear." — Katie Ives Alpinist Magazine, Issue 77, "Of Thin Ice"
"I've seen deep-green moss and delicate alpine plants glow emerald, burgundy and gold beneath a spume of translucent ice—safely beneath the reach of my sharp axe and crampon points—like miniature worlds of living things preserved in giant drops of amber or globes of glass." — Katie Ives Alpinist Magazine, Issue 77, "Of Thin Ice"
"You are refined, not defined, by defeat." — Aaron Eveland
"However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far removed from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown." — JK Rowling Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
"It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet and what is sand." — Madeleine L'Engle The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
"There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount, a perfect ratio of water to rock, of water to sand, ensuring that wide, free, open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid west so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here, unless you try to establish a city where no city should be." — Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
"We are animals. We, like the otter, can digest the flesh of smelt in our gut and can roll to our backs, hands clutched over our chests. We, like the smelt, come to the edge of the sea to live and we scatter when there is fear. We lick our fingers clean, sleep when we must, and dream when we sleep, like any animal. We are also animals who are taking up an incredible amount of space for our size." — Craig Childs The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
"The mountains do not exist for our amusement. They owe us nothing, and they ask nothing of us." — The Freedom of the Hills
"It’s easy for us to take [national parks] for granted because we didn’t have to fight for [them]. Our generation was born into the park system, and hopefully it will be here for the next, but not without a fight. Vested interests would love to drill, tap, frack, or graze it, and they are paying lots of lobbyists to do so. So next time you see a Sequoia, or a Redwood, or a Joshua Tree, or a Saguaro, don’t forget these things can easily be taken away if we don’t fight back. Anyone who has truly been in love knows it’s a constant battle." — Jeff Edwards Stay Wild Magazine, Summer 2016, "Perfect Excuse"
"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
