“White people love rock climbing almost more than they love camping. This isbecause the activity affords them the opportunity to be outside, to use a carabiner for something other than their keys, and to purchase a whole new set of expensive activity-specific clothing and accessories.”

“In soloing--as in other activities--it is far easier to start something than to finish it.”

“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.”

“So we're getting close to suggesting that camp is both the opposite of cool and a refinement of it. Camp and cool both have an element of not-caring, of disdain for the ordinary. The difference is that cool implies a lack of conscious effort, whereas camp is about putting everything you've got into it. Either you love something too much (much more than it's "worth", so the stereotypical anorak-wearing Doctor Who fan and the Barry Manilow cultist are both manifestations of this, at least to the outside world), or you're given to going over the top. Or you do both at once, in many cases. Both phenomena are examples of people fashioning an identity for themselves, and if you're reading this book then you must know people like that. Cool is not caring, camp is actively defiant.”

“To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor.”

“The definition of a strength that we will use throughout this book is quite specific: consistent near perfect performance in an activity.”