‘This was a savage, bone-crushing cold that scolded my skin like acid’
The survivors hadn’t realised that the altimeter on the plane was wrong and that they weren’t actually at 7,000 feet but at 12,000 and the mountain they would have to climb was one of the highest in the Andes
‘Luckily, we knew nothing, and our ignorance provided our only chance’
‘The Andes took so much from me, I explain, but they also gave me the simple insight that has liberated me and illuminated my life: death is real, and death is very near’
‘I did feel something larger than myself, something in the mountains and glaciers and the glowing sky that, in rare moments, reassured me and made me feel that the world was orderly and loving and good. if this was God, it was not a God as a being or spirit or some omnipotent superhuman mind. it was not a God who would choose to save us or abandon us, or change in any way. it was simply a silence, a wholeness (of being), an awe-inspiring simplicity.’
‘I have no interest in any God who can be understood’
