6 Quotes by Alan S. Kesselheim

I have come, more and more, to believe that the way we are in the world actually has an impact on the world. When we are respectful, joyous, grateful, engaged, the world responds to that in concrete ways. When we are angry and resentful, or selfish or bitter, things sour around us.

Once, when a government agent arrived at her home with a ream of paper that documented the case against her, she asked if that law was more powerful than natural law. He told her that, yes, it was a powerful law, the law of the federal government. Then, she said, it should be more powerful that this, and she threw it into her woodstove.

A great many people, and more all the time, live their entire lives without ever once sleeping out under the stars.

Small mistakes, the lack of care, little accidents, and somewhere a tipping point is passed and things go badly wrong. Expedition history brims with tragedies built out of incremental missteps.

If I replace the word God with the word nature, I am far more at ease with the whole religious enterprise.

More and more, paddling the Yellowstone feels like that bedside visit, like we are attending to a friend in dire straits, a friend whom we have seen in the full bloom of health, but with whom, now, there is little to say and only our companionship to offer.