Alvah Simon > Quotes

“Death is only one of many ways to lose your life.”
― Alvah Simon, North To The Night

“Half the world is waiting for some perfect time to start living their lives.”
― Alvah Simon, North To The Night

“And so I tell myself again: I am here because in the landscape of each and every human imagination lies one special place. Our inner compass keeps pointing us toward this spot, which is magnetic, mysterious, exotic, and alluring but, alas, always fringed by a frontier of our fears. Still, it is to this specific place that we are compelled to travel in order to know ourselves and, in so doing, call our lives complete.”
― Alvah Simon, North To The Night

“loneliness flowed through my bones with an ache.”
― Alvah Simon, North To The Night

“To face a life in these extremes, these men must live to a code of machismo that would wither the men of many cultures. Is it somehow required that, to hold your head high as a man among men, you must treat your life with such casual abandon? Or, I wondered, is it more than that? Is it tied to their overall spiritual view of life? By walking the thin line cast by the shadow of death, do they come to know life with an intimacy that the timid cannot?”
― Alvah Simon, North to the Light: A Year in the Arctic Ice

“On a larger scale-be it our need for precious metals, hydroelectric power, or marine resources- we will all face the same decisions, feel under the same pressure to perform and produce. We will always be tempted to take a little more, push the land and its limits just a little bit harder. Do one or two birds matter? Will one more mineral mine or a few more drilling platforms alter the delicate balance? No, not on their own. But person by person, decision by decision, year by year, we will either nurture and protect this natural treasure for future generations, or we will not and our world will be profoundly diminished.”
― Alvah Simon, North to the Night : A Spiritual Odyssey in the Arctic