“I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”

“Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”

“I thought it would all fall into place. I've changed my mind. Do nothing, and nothing happens. Life is about decisions. You either make them or they’re made for you, but you can’t avoid them.”

“I wondered if I was an error of God's planning that would be fixed at the end of my life.”

“Many things happened in my life, and I thought that they changed me. But in the end, nothing has changed since I was seventeen. If I could keep today’s happiness I wouldn’t worry about tomorrow. ”

“I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats.”