The Abominable Quotes

“Mountaineers know that all mountains are in a constant state of collapse—their verticality being inescapably and inevitably worn down every moment by wind, water, weather, and gravity—but”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“clusterboink”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“The Deacon shows white teeth through the icicles still dangling from his new beard. “I think this beautiful bitch of a mountain has already declared war on us, my friends. God or the gods or destiny or chance grant that we be worthy of the challenge.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“The only problem with Christianity,” Somervell had told the Deacon as they shared a two-man tent high on a snowy pass during the ’22 expedition, “is that it’s never really been tried.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“We’re professional alpine climbers, ma’am,” the Deacon says, leaning closer to the woman in black. “We climb fast and through all weather, we eat light, we sleep in canvas bags tied to the mountainside by a rope or—failing that—sit out the night on a narrow ledge with a lit candle under our chins to keep us from nodding off.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“I’d already come to realize that the monologue was his favorite form of conversation.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“began to wonder when this expedition had crossed the boundary from the merely fantastic into the region of the absurdly unbelievable.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“The Matterhorn’s summit ridge is not quite what excited journalists like to call “a knife-edge ridge.” Our boot prints in the snow along the actual ridge prove this. Had it been a knife-edge ridge, with snow, our boot prints would have been on both sides, since the smart way to traverse a true knife edge is to hobble slowly along like a ruptured duck, one leg on the west side of the narrow summit ridge, one on the east. A slip then will lead to bruised testicles but not—God and fate willing—a 4,000-foot fall.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“martyrs of the Antarctic.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“This altitude is not of this world, I think dully. We humans are not meant or evolved to be up here, I think, with some small sense of panic stirring in me.
At the same time, a totally contradictory thought rises to the surface:
I'm meant to be here. I've waited all my life for this.”
― Dan Simmons, The Abominable

“25 juin”
― Dan Simmons, L'Abominable