To a Mountain in Tibet Quotes

“As the track bends north-east, the ethereal sandstone disappears. The slopes turn black with granite, and the mountain's lower ridges break into unstable spikes and revetments. Their ribs are slashed in chiaroscuro, and their last outcrops pour towards the valley in the fluid, anthropomorphic shapes that pilgrims love. The spine and haunches of a massive stone beast, gazing at Kailas, are hailed as the Nandi bull, holy to Shiva; another rock has become the votive cake of Padmasambhava.”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet

“Sometimes journeys begin long before their first step is taken”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet

“A journey is not a cure. It brings an illusion, only, of change, and becomes at best a spartan comfort”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet

“Its waters yawn with the same fathomless intensity as Rakshas Tal, but the peacock blue has deepened to a well of pure cobalt, edged by snow mountains that overlook it from one horizon to another.”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet

“The trouble is we have no education,’ he says. ‘Only that would save us. It’s too late for my father and mother–you see them–and it’s too late for me. I’m thirty-five. My wife too, she is quite uneducated.’ She smiles faintly. ‘But my children go to school now. We have hope for them, and for the boy. But five children is too many. We had them again and again.”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet: A Haunting and Intimate Memoir of Pilgrimage, Loss, and the Journey to Mount Kailas

“Trekkers at high altitudes sometimes sense a person walking a few paces behind them, just out of sight. Often this person is dead. I never feel this, but once or twice I imagine someone walking a little ahead of me.”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet

“From time to time we see hearthrugs moving over the slopes. With quaintly hunched shoulders and bushy culottes, these are yaks. In their darkly dripping coats they stand out like rocks against the bleached grass where they graze.”
― Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet