Touching the Void 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

“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

“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

“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

“couloir”
― 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