[Alongside the painstaking moments in the crevice are richly told tales of Ralston's prior adventures. After quitting his job as a mechanical engineer, he became an expert outdoorsman. The book finds him trekking along mountaintops, precipices and canyon floors around the world. Here, a bear stalks him; there, an avalanche buries him. He is always close to falling, being crushed or losing one appendage or another. The flashbacks provide relief from the intense pinned-arm drama, but also put Ralston's doomed Utah trip in perspective:] I wanted to show that I wasn't in over my head, ... This was something that was relatively low-exposure for me. |
[One has to stay calm and] you have to be able to look at this as you're treating someone else and looking after their best interest, ... Getting emotional about it is oftentimes the worst thing you could do for yourself. |
At this point, I've got the confidence to know that I'll get through anything in my life given I have the motivation to do it, ... If it's an act of survival, we've all got a reason to keep living. It may not be pretty, but surviving is grit and determination in its highest form. I learned that I've got the capacity to do a hell of a lot more than I thought I could if I have the proper motivation. |
Between a Rock and a Hard Place. |
big tall, tasty, crushed-ice margarita. |
Bring love and peace and happiness and beautiful lives into the world in my honor. Thank you. Love you. |
For five years I had a phenomenally successful career, but I was bored. |
Given reasonable conditions, most people would be able to keep themselves alive, |
I knew the power of the story to affect other people. It needed a legacy. |
I think it's out there and it's not something that I treat lightly, |
I think it's out there and it's not something that I treat lightly, ... At the same time, I realized there's a lot that's going to have to change in my life before I become a father, as far as how I live, my priorities, where I might live. When the time comes, that's something I want to be just as passionate about as how passionate I am in how I live now. |
I think my spirituality is very similar to what it was before. It wasn't as if I went through some kind of enlightenment and figured out all the answers, ... I figured out what was important to me, but I knew that before. I just didn't express it as much to the people I appreciate, to my family and friends, and I've tried to be more practiced in that. |
I thought I was going to die. |
I want people to see that for themselves in their own life. Whatever you're faced with you already have the tools to transform that adversity into something that's positive. That's what I proved to myself. |
I'd taken the knife, and I'd etched into the wall the four letters of my name. Just to identify who this body that was here. |