"And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man's weak praise should be given God's attention."
— Donald Miller (Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road)

"Come fairies take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame."
— William Butler Yeats

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity..."
— John Muir

"Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?"
— Jane Austen

"The famous Zen parable about the master for whom, before his studies, mountains were only mountains, but during his studies mountains were no longer mountains, and afterward mountains were again mountains could be interpreted as an alleory about [the perpetual paradox that when one is closest to a destination one is also the farthest)."
— Rebecca Solnit (Wanderlust: A History of Walking)

""...the Sierra, a region so quiet and pristine that we have the sense of being the first human beings ever to set foot in it. We fall silent ourselves in its midst, as if conversation in a place of such primaevl solitude would be like talking in church."
— Jim Fergus (The Wild Girl: A Novel)

"What are men to rocks and mountains?
"
— Jane Austen

"Having achieved what I thought was an ultimate ambition, I found, as I think is often the case, that there remained something more."
— John Christopher

"A lone peak of high point is a natural focal point in the landscape, something by which both travelers and local orient themselves. In the continuum of landscape, mountains are discontinuity -- culminating in high points, natural barriers, unearthly earth."
— Rebecca Solnit (Wanderlust: A History of Walking)

"[In mountaineering, if] we look for private experience rather than public history, even getting to the top becomes an optional narrative rather than the main point, and those who only wander in high places become part of the story."
— Rebecca Solnit (Wanderlust: A History of Walking)

"Getting to the top is optional, but getting down is mandatory."
— Ed Viesturs (No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks)