Quotes from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“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.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“That’s leadership: lead by example, lead from the front, inspire people to follow your lead.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“Any “story” can be told in dozens of different ways. For that very reason, I believe, every time you go back and reexamine an important chapter in your life, you learn something new about it.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“There’s an old and honored tradition in exploration literature that you don’t air your dirty laundry in print. Whatever bickering, name-calling, grudge nursing, and dark funks really took place on the expedition, they’re nobody else’s business.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“By now, a significant portion of the whole Sherpa economy depends on the spring and fall seasons on Everest.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“It reminds me of a very wise saying about mountaineering that my wife, Paula, repeats often: “Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you don’t.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“Morally, however, we had had absolutely no choice but to abort our summit try to help Thor and Chantal get down the mountain. That’s why I find it so hard to stomach all the accounts in recent years—especially on Everest—of climbers ignoring others in trouble for fear a rescue effort would sabotage their own summit bids.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“After two hours of the hardest”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“the men placed willow wands every 50 feet or so to mark their route—as I did in 1992, but as no one bothered to in 1986 or 2008, an oversight that contributed to both tragedies.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

“Mountaineering will never be a safe activity and would not be worth doing if it were.”
― Ed Viesturs, quote from K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.