Laurence Gonzales quotes:

Bureaucracies force us to practice nonsense. And if you rehearse nonsense, you may one day find yourself the victim of it.

Count your blessings. Be grateful-- you're alive

Gravity is on duty all of the time.

Success is a dangerous element in any endeavor. Embrace the struggle. Beware the achievement. For it steals your caution even as it leads you down the next unknown pathway.

Survival is the celebration of choosing life over death. We know we're going to die. We all die. But survival is saying: perhaps not today. In that sense, survivors don't defeat death, they come to terms with it.

To survive you must find yourself then it won't matter where you are.

To survive you must surrender without giving in, that is to say, fully accept the reality in all its horror and never give up the will to survive. That allows you to quickly adapt to the situation and dedicate yourself to the present moment rather than wallow in denial.

To deal with reality you must first recognize it as such.

I am constantly surrounded by a display of natural wonders...It is beauty surrounded by ugly fear. I write in my log that it's a view of heaven from a seat in hell. (survivor after 53 days at sea)

But what is the way forward? I know what it isn't. It's not, as we once believed, plenty to eat and a home with all the modern conveniences. It's not a 2,000-mile-long wall to keep Mexicans out or more accurate weapons to kill them. It's not a better low-fat meal or a faster computer speed. It's not a deodorant, a car, a soft drink, a skin cream. The way forward is found on a path through the wilderness of the head and heart---reason and emotion. Thinking, knowing, understanding.

As you run out of options and energy you must become resigned to your plight. Like it or not you must make a new mental map of where you are, not where you wish you were. To survive you must find yourself, then it won't matter where you are.

The summit is not the only place on the mountain.

The sun beams are always there. The trick is in seeing them.

The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have.

We don't understand the power of nature and the world because we don't live with it. Our environment is designed to sustain us. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo called civilization.

We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel.