- "Im drawn to open country. It's where everything becomes clear, where the world makes the most sense. When I put myself out there, I always return with something new. A friend once told me: The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning, you didn't even think to ask."
- "Fear of the uknown is the greatest fear of all, but we just went for it"
- "The word adventure has gotten overused, to me, adventure is when everything goes wrong. That's when the adventure starts."
- "How can people who are trapped in the city try to create a more ecologically minded world if you don't know that it's possible. A good example of how people become closed off from their ecosystems is with their walkmen or iPods. So you start to further close yourself off. You don't want to breathe the dirty air, you don't want to hear because it's annoying, you don't want to look because it's ugly. That is why we dont understand nature, love it or take care of it. We don't realize that we depend on it psychologically and physically 100%-
- "I think first and foremost, people only protect the things they love. And you can't love something unless you inherently identify with it. -Kris Tompkins
- "I think it leaves open possibilities for future generations. It doesn't seem to be worth wasting a lot of energy on attempting to rewrite the past. I just realized, at least what i was doing, is that i was making a lot of stuff that nobody needed and pushing a consumerist society. so i went to do something else."
- "When those guys came back, they were pretty shot and pretty discouraged that they couldn't climb it. Any mountain at certain times is safe and at other times it's super dangerous, we just happened to be there at the wrong time. Maybe Jeff and Tim were still bothered by the idea that they couldn't climb it. So it's kind of like the quest for the holy grail, well you know, who gives a shit about what the holy grail is, it's the quest that's important. The transformation is within yourself, that's what's important"
- "This journey was like going back in time. Like seeing North America before it got dominated by industry. But for these people, it's not some nostalgic trip into the past, it's their present. Their hard work and ability to live simply with the land is proof that we can learn from tradition. These people have shown me that if you love a place, you have a duty to protect it. And to love a place, you must know it first."
- "It's easy for us to blindly consume, when we dont see the effects it has on other places. The hardest thing in the world is to simply your life, it's so easy to make it complex. What's important is leading an examined life because most of the damaged caused by humans is caused unintentionally, I think. And in response to people saying,'You can't go back.' and I say, 'Well what happens when you get to the edge of the cliff. Do you take one step forward or do 180° turn and take one step forward? Which way you goin? Which is progress?' The solution to many of the world's problems maybe to turn around and to take a forward step. You can't just keep trying to make a flawed system work."
- "My whole life, i've been drawn to open country. I always return home a little different. But i know now, we can no longer take it for granted. When open country is gone, we will be gone with it."
- "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach." -Alex Huxley
- "I've met a lot of young people who ask me what books to read, or what films to watch. I think its a good way to start, but there's no substitute for just going there."
- "You get to the top of a wall, there's nothing up there. Lionel Terray, the great French climber called it 'The conquistadors of the useless.' Yeah, the end result is absolutely useless, but every time I travel, I learn something new and hopefully I get to be a better person."
jun 15 2010 ∞
jan 17 2011 +
jan 17 2011 +