“Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”

“K2 is not some malevolent being, lurking there above the Baltoro, waiting to get us. It's just there. It's indifferent. It's an inanimate mountain made of rock, ice, and snow. The "savageness" is what we project onto it, as if we blame the peak for our own misadventures on it.”

“I believe that, with anything in life, if you have the patience, desire and passion, you can do whatever you set your mind to.”

“it never hurts to get second opinion”

“I'm gonna put that gun as far up his ass as it'll go, then I'm just gonna keep loadin' and reloadin' till my arms get tired.”

“If you're going to drive a Hummer and buy carbon offsets, that's like getting drunk every night and getting into an AA meeting, throwing money in the basket, and leaving.”

“A: Is this the copy that you read as a kid?E: Yes. Look at the edges--that turquoise color. It's lighter along the top, from where the sun hit it. Now look at this gorgeous color here, the long edge. Beautiful. Makes me nostalgic.A: For what?E: I don't know. The age of turquoise page edges. Somewhere there's a grad student doing her dissertation on the inks used in twentieth-century mass-market paperbacks. ”