“Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking above all else, something like a state of grace.”

“Fact One: Races are won or lost in key moments. Fact Two: Success in the sport is, above all else, about enduring suffering.”

“We cannot scale Mt Everest in 20 minutes, but give us two weeks, and we'll be back with T-shirts for everyone that read, "I climbed Mt. Everest and this lousy T-shirt is all I got.”

“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

“love wasn't possible in just a couple of days. Love could be set in motion quickly, but true love needed time to grow into something strong and enduring. Love was, above all, about commitment and dedication and a belief that spending years with a certain person would create something greater than the sum of what the two can accomplish separately.”