Joe Simpson > Quotes

“Life can deal you an amazing hand. Do you play it steady, bluff like crazy or go all in?”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“Clouds hid the peaks and only their flanks were visible beneath a murky ceiling.”
― Joe Simpson

“Part of what makes him (laid-back Tim Hudson)an ace is that he would never acknowledge that he is an ace.”
― Joe Simpson

“Fear seems to exist only in our imagination. Without imagination, without the ability to see our place in the future, to work out the consequence of a particular event in all its gruesome detail, we would be quite fearless. I suppose that is why serious violent accidents, such as car crashes, avalanches, and long bouncing falls are frequently described as not frightening while actually taking place. It’s as if so much is happening to you, so much information is rushing into your mind that you have no time to imagine what the outcome might be. Things seem to happen in slow motion, as if the speed at which your mind is operating is affecting your perception of time. The future is simply a matter of fact, an emotionless reality – you will be dead – and that is that. Only the present, what is happening to you at this very instant, concerns you. Because of this, you are unable to extrapolate what the future will be like as a result of what is happening to you now. All you can do is to experience the present, nothing more. Deprived of the ability to imagine the future, you are fearless; suddenly there is nothing to be scared about. You have no time to ponder on death’s significance or fear what it may feel like. In the cataclysmic violence of the accident you lose not only the future but the past as well. You lose all possible reasons for fear, unable as you are”
― Joe Simpson, This Game of Ghosts

“If you succeed with one dream...it's not long before you're conjuring up another, slightly harder, a bit more ambitious, a bit more dangerous”
― Joe Simpson

“my eyes blurred wetly with hot tears”
― Joe Simpson

“Life can deal you an amazing hand. Do you play it steady, bluff like crazy or go all in? I'll never know. -”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“He was still grinning, and his confidence was infectious. Who said one man can't rescue another, I thought. We had changed from climbing to rescue, and the partnership had worked just as effectively. We hadn't dwelt on the accident. There had been an element of uncertainty at first, but as soon as we had started to act positively everything had come together.”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“We live within such a tiny capsule of time yet it seems vast until death rudely makes it so insignificant.”
― Joe Simpson, The Beckoning Silence

“There is something about mountains that moves the soul. They arouse a powerful sense of spiritual awareness and a notion of our own transient and fragile mortality and our insignificant place in the universe. They have about them an ethereal, evocative addiction that I find impossible to resist. They are an infuriating and fascinating contradiction. Climbing rarely makes sense but nearly always feels right.”
― Joe Simpson, The Beckoning Silence

“There is a peculiar anonymity about being in tents. Once the zip is closed and the outside world barred from sight, all sense of location disappears.”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“My body isn’t designed for walking. It’s entirely the wrong shape. The legs are far too short and the whole trunk is shaped exactly to fit into seats and be carried comfortably to its destination, preferably by something fast and exciting, such as a sports car or a helicopter.”
― Joe Simpson, This Game of Ghosts

“He had sat numb, repeatedly questioning why his own tumble had been held on the same piton just before the Japanese leader had fallen and ripped it out. A day later he was his normal self again: an experience absorbed, shelved in his memory, understood and accepted, and left at that.”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“Ultimately, we all have to look after ourselves, whether on mountains or in day to day life. In my view that is not a licence to be selfish, for only by taking good care of ourselves are we able to help others. Away from the mountains, in the complexity of everyday life, the price of neglecting this responsibility might be a marriage breaking down, a disruptive child, a business failing or a house repossessed. In the mountains the penalty for neglect can often be death.”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“The minute I knew help was at hand something had collapsed inside me. Whatever had been holding me together had gone. Now I could not think for myself, let alone crawl! There was nothing to fight for, no patterns to follow, no voice, and it frightened me to think that, without these, I might run out of life.”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“Life can deal you an amazing hand. Do you play it steady, bluff like crazy or go all in?”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“couloir”
― Joe Simpson, Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival

“Youth is not a time of life … it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips and supple knees … it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions … it is a freshness of the deep springs of life.’ Unknown.”
― Joe Simpson, The Beckoning Silence