High Altitude Quotes

The excellent book 'Going Higher. Oxygen, Man, And Mountains.' should be compulsory reading for all high altitude workers. ~ Steven Magee

Image intensifiers, which ultimately became "night vision" Fiber optics Supertenacity fibers Lasers Molecular alignment metallic alloys Integrated circuits and microminiaturization of logic boards HARP (High Altitude Research Project) Project Horizon (moon base) Portable atomic generators (ion propulsion drive) Irradiated food "Third brain" guidance systems (EBE headbands) Particle beams ("Star Wars" antimissile energy weapons) Electromagnetic propulsion systems Depleted uranium projectiles ~ Philip J. Corso

Hal loathes sky-and-cloud wallpaper because it makes him feel high-altitude and disoriented and sometimes plummeting. ~ David Foster Wallace

And give me some coffee. Black as midnight on a moonless night."
Harga looked surprised. That wasn't like Vimes.
"How black's that, then?" he said.
"Oh, pretty damn black, I should think."
"Not necessarily."
"What?"
"You get more stars on a moonless night. Stands to reason. They show up more. It can be quite bright on a moonless night."
Vimes sighed.
"An overcast moonless night?" he said.
Harga looked carefully at his coffee pot.
"Cumulus or cirro-nimbus?"
"I'm sorry? What did you say?"
"You get city lights reflected off cumulus, because it's low lying, see. Mind you, you can get high-altitude scatter off the ice crystals in
"
"A moonless night," said Vimes, in a hollow voice, "that is as black as coffee. ~ Terry Pratchett

You got no fuckin idea how bad it gets. I'm not you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude fucks once or twice a year. You're too much for me, Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you. ~ Annie Proulx

I let them do some simple arithmetic. In a group of one hundred people, how many assholes are there? How many fathers who humiliate their children? How many morons whose breath stinks like rotten meat but who refuse to do anything about it? How many hopeless cases who go on complaining all their lives about the non-existent injustices they've had to suffer? Look around you, I said. How many of your classmates would you be pleased not to see return to their desks tomorrow morning? Think about that one family member of your own family, that irritating uncle with his pointless, horseshit stories at birthday parties, that ugly cousin who mistreats his cat. Think about how relieved you would be - and not only you, but virtually the entire family - if that uncle or cousin would step on a landmine or be hit by a five-hundred-pounder dropped from a high altitude. If that member of the family were to be wiped off the face of the earth. And now think about all those millions of victims of all the wars there have been in the past - I never specifically mentioned the Second World War, I used it as an example because it's the one that most appeals to their imaginations - and think about the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of victims who we need to have around like we need a hole in the head. Even from a purely statistical standpoint, it's impossible that all those victims were good people, whatever kind of people that may be. The injustice is found more in the fact that the assholes ~ Herman Koch

The amount of people I met that had heart problems surprised me in high altitude astronomy. I had not seen it in other fields. After a decade of working at high altitudes, I was also diagnosed with a heart problem. ~ Steven Magee

The long term health complications from COVID-19 are remarkably similar to what is being seen in long term high altitude workers. ~ Steven Magee

I regard taking healthy sea level adapted children to the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea as a form of child abuse. ~ Steven Magee

During my time in high altitude astronomy, I became aware of workers having gender issues. Many years later I discovered that sex hormones were affected by high altitude exposures. ~ Steven Magee

As a sea level adapted human, I am more fearful about the radiation levels on top of high altitude mountains, mile high modern cities and inside jet aircraft than from nuclear reactors and bombs, as that is where I get the most radiation exposures in the modern world. ~ Steven Magee

When I worked in high altitude astronomy, I had no idea how dangerous the management teams were. ~ Steven Magee

In order to fly you have to create space in the open air so that your wings can really spread out. It's like a parachute. They only work from a high altitude. To fly you have to begin taking risks. If you don't want to, maybe the best thing is just to give up, and keep walking forever. ~ Jorge Bucay

and I have seen them all, stars such as John Wayne (Jet Pilot with Janet Leigh), or George C. Scott (Not With My Wife, You Don't with Virna Lisi), or William Holden (The Bridges at Toko-Ri with Grace Kelly) all fly with their visors up and their oxygen masks dangling loose. I assume this is to let the cameras record them acting. No real pilot flies like that. Without a visor, the high altitude glare would blind me and ~ Ed Cobleigh

The lasting physical and mental health effects of long term very high altitude exposure appear to be remarkably similar to daily heavy smoking. ~ Steven Magee

A review of summit day photographs will show that I was clothed in the latest, highest quality, high altitude gear, comparable, if not better, than that worn by the other members of our expedition. ~ Anatoli Boukreev

After several extreme very high altitude night shifts, returning to sea level and exposure to increased oxygen and bright sunlight would bring on intestinal pains and diarrhea after eating the first large meal. ~ Steven Magee

The decision to rely heavily on high-altitude air power, target urban infrastructure and repeatedly attack heavily populated towns and villages has reflected a deliberate trade-off of the lives of American pilots and soldiers, not with those of their declared Taliban enemies, but with Afghan civilians ... There will be no official two-minute silence for the Afghan dead, no newspaper obituaries or memorial services attended by the prime minister, as there were for the victims of the twin towers. ~ Seumas Milne

I stopped snowboarding as I started to recognize symptoms that corresponded with radiation sickness when at high altitude ski resorts. ~ Steven Magee

When I asked him what he thought, Neal said, 'Anatoli, many of our members are at high altitude for the first time, and they don't understand many of the simple things. They want us to hold their hands through everything.' I replied simply, saying that was an absurd position. I repeated again my concerns that we had to encourage self-reliance, and that our contributions to fixing ropes, getting the route ready, were just as important. About this Neal disagreed, saying that we had enough Sherpas to do this job. I told Neal that I thought, judging by our current situation, we were going to fall behind in the establishment of our high-altitude camps and our acclimatization routines could be compromised. ~ Anatoli Boukreev

High altitude exposures are a hormone disrupter in sea level adapted humans. ~ Steven Magee

I am an amateur mountain climber. Once or twice a year I go off to Chamonix in the French Alps, under Mont Blanc, and with a guide do treks that include rock climbing at high altitude. ~ Robert Littell

You're a little bit of a show-off. First you get us out of hell. And then you defeat like the biggest, baddest Watcher on the books, and then you go on a high-speed, very high-altitude chase, and then you resuscitate the dead. Are you done? Because seriously, I don't know if I can take any more excitement. ~ Cynthia Hand

After a decade in high altitude astronomy, I concluded that astronomical observatories atop remote mountains are biologically harmful to sea level adapted humans. ~ Steven Magee

But until then, and right now, the sun is bright, the air is cool, my head is clear, there's a whole day ahead of us, we're almost to the mountains, it's a good day to be alive. It's this thinner air that does it. You always feel like this when you start getting into higher altitudes. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Never trust a high altitude astronomer. ~ Steven Magee

Very high altitude observatories are a known worker health hazard. ~ Steven Magee

In 1996 the disasters on the mountain had robbed Neil of the chance to go above camp four. Two years on he was here again--only this time the summit was within his reach.
He felt strong and waited anxiously for Mick to arrive. They would need to be together to manage the last ridge and the Hillary Step.
Something told Neil that things were not going right.
As the precious minutes slipped by, as he waited for Mick and the others to reach him, he sensed that the dream that had eluded him once was going to do so again.
Somewhere along the way, there had been a misunderstanding between the climbers over who had what rope. It happens at high altitude. It is a simple mistake.
But mistakes have consequences.
Suddenly, here, at four hundred feet beneath the summit of Mount Everest, it dawned on them all that they had run out of rope. They would have no choice now but to retreat. Continuing was not even an option.
Neil stared through his goggles at the summit: so close, yet so very far. All he felt was emptiness.
He turned and never looked back. ~ Bear Grylls

But despite the maturity of the basic F4U design, the risks involved in flight-testing design changes remained. On 8 July 1946 test pilot Dick Burroughs was killed while attempting to land at the Tweed New Haven Airport following an engine failure in the XF4U-5. Later that year, project pilot Bill Horan survived a risky bail out of an F4U-5 following an engine failure during a high altitude dive test over Long Island Sound. ~ Ralph Harvey

After decades of hauling telescopes around in the back of vans and going up to high altitude locations and so forth, I did finally build an observatory, here on Sonoma mountain. ~ Timothy Ferriss

Thanks to President Obama, I am able to get medical treatment in the USA for the long term effects of very high altitude sickness and unnatural electromagnetic radiation exposures. ~ Steven Magee

Is getting filthy rich still your goal above all goals, your be-all and end-all, the mist-shrouded high-altitude spawning pond to your inner salmon? ~ Mohsin Hamid

My favorite Aspen memory is saving an upside-down cake that had exploded from the high altitude. ~ Emeril Lagasse

This one's my other favorite. 'He's successful in interfacing with clients we already have, but as for new clients, it's low-hanging fruit. He takes a high-altitude view, but he doesn't drill down to that level of granularity where we might actionize new opportunities.'"
Clark winced. "I remember that one. I think I may have had a minor stroke in the office when he said that. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

By analyzing data from Greenwich Observatory in the period 1836-1953, John A. Eddy [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and High Altitude Observatory in Boulder] and Aram A. Boornazian [mathematician with S. Ross and Co. in Boston] have found evidence that the sun has been contracting about 0.1% per century during that time, corresponding to a shrinkage rate of about 5 feet per hour. And digging deep into historical records, Eddy has found 400-year-old eclipse observations that are consistent with such a shrinkage. ~ Jonathan Sarfati

Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system to protect from ballistic missile attacks. Introduced in light of the ballistic missile threat from Pakistan and China, it is a double-tiered system consisting of two interceptor missiles, namely the Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile for high altitude interception, and the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) Missile for lower altitude interception. The two-tiered shield should be able to intercept any incoming missile launched 5,000 kilometres away. India became the fourth country to have ~ SABARINATHAN. K

Damn it," the man facing her muttered. "Who are you?"
"Lady Pandora Ravenel. I'll tell them..." Her voice trailed away as she found herself looking up at an arrogant young god, tall and big framed, every line of him taut with feline grace. The tiny pendant lamp overhead sent sunstruck golden glints playing among the thick, well-cut layers of his amber hair. His eyes were winter-blue, his cheekbones high and straight, the line of his jaw hard enough to chisel marble. The full, sensuous curves of his lips lent a note of erotic dissonance to his otherwise classic features. One glance at him was enough to make her feel as if she were trying to breathe at high altitude. What would it do to a man's character to be so inhumanly beautiful? It couldn't be anything good. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I've been through the entire list of Polar problems. I knew it would be hard, but it's harder than I ever thought it would be. I've suffered from blisters, a high-altitude cough, frost nip, and I even managed to break a ski they told me was unbreakable. ~ Lewis Clarke

Because of the high altitude, you get drunk really fast. So everyone's drunk all the time. ~ Clea Duvall

I can't help it! I'm just a woman with high standards! ~ Josie Maran

The Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high on the beach, and was creating and feeding other matters [science] at other ends of the world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Carter is doing a high-wire act over a cesspool, preaching all the way. Sinclair Lewis, thou shouldst be living in this hour. We have a Warren Harding impersonating Elmer Gantry. ~ Jimmy Carter

Ethan's parents constantly told him how brainy he was. "You're so smart! You can do anything, Ethan. We are so proud of you, they would say every time he sailed through a math test. Or a spelling test. Or any test. With the best of intentions, they consistently tethered Ethan's accomplishment to some innate characteristic of his intellectual prowess. Researchers call this "appealing to fixed mindsets." The parents had no idea that this form of praise was toxic.

　　Little Ethan quickly learned that any academic achievement that required no effort was the behavior that defined his gift. When he hit junior high school, he ran into subjects that did require effort. He could no longer sail through, and, for the first time, he started making mistakes. But he did not see these errors as opportunities for improvement. After all, he was smart because he could mysteriously grasp things quickly. And if he could no longer grasp things quickly, what did that imply? That he was no longer smart. Since he didn't know the ingredients making him successful, he didn't know what to do when he failed. You don't have to hit that brick wall very often before you get discouraged, then depressed. Quite simply, Ethan quit trying. His grades collapsed.


What happens when you say, 'You're so smart'

　　Research shows that Ethan's unfortunate story is typical of kids regularly praised for some fixed characteristic. If you praise your child this way, three things are sta ~ John Medina

Now is the perfect time to make powerful change-your willingness is at an all-time high. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein

There are so many of these young-adult movies with these cold guys who act like jerks to girls but are hiding soft sentiments. But in the real world most guys who act like jerks are jerks. Generally they are. I spent a lot of high school thinking that horrible guys must be very sensitive and interesting and it's not true. ~ Alice Englert

The time to sing is when your emotional level is just too high to speak anymore, and the time to dance is when your emotions are just too strong to only sing about how you feel. ~ Bob Fosse

As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool. ~ Kevin Mitnick

God is not interested in how big our ministry has become. He is much more intimately interested in how we tended to the garden of our own hearts. And that is what He will hold us in high account for. ~ Anna Blanc

My dear girl,' I answered in high spirits, for I felt elated at being active again. 'You are about to witness the birth of an immortal literary masterpiece. In a few moments, I shall begin the composition of an eloquent letter. This letter is going to be received by everyone in the Reich who has a Polish name. Or at least that is what shall try to accomplish. We want to remidn everyone of Polish origin that, although they are nominally German, Polish blood continues to flow in their veins.'
Danuta interrupted my oratory.
'Calm down, Witold. Don't excite yourself so. If you raise your voice much louder you shan't have to send any letters. Everybody in the Third Reich will have heard you, including the Gestapo. ~ Jan Karski

Coincidentally the couple who had endowed it had lived in her parents' building. They had had an eight-year-old with a pretty singing voice who drowned at a Maine summer camp. "You can't imagine what happened," said Sarah, but of course Rebecca could imagine. Being a boy soprano had a shorter shelf life than being a supermodel. She could almost see it as Sarah went on and on, the boy with the pale blue eyes, insensible to the hormones coursing through his body as he stood on the stage at Alice Tully Hall. Apparently his choir director had chosen "Old Man River," sung not in the bass range made famous by Paul Robeson, or in the dialect in which it had been written, but in a high register with crisp consonants. (To be fair to the choir director, he had never ~ Anna Quindlen

The percent likelihood of a society becoming physically violent if it is physically affectionate towards its infants and tolerant of premarital sexual behavior is 2 percent. The probability of this relationship occurring by chance is 125,000 to one. I am not aware of any other developmental variable that has such a high degree of predictive validity. ~ James W. Prescott

There is rarely a creative man who does not have to pay a high price for the divine spark of his great gifts ... the human element is frequently bled for the benefit of the creative element. ~ Carl Jung

You get addicted to emotions. Our endorphins kick in and it's like a high. On the low end you might love roller coasters. On the high end you might be a bank robber or something. ~ Bryan Cranston

We will fight tirelessly to protect the rights of those who spew hate in the public square, stockpile weapons capable of wiping out classrooms of children, and flood our airwaves with lies to sway elections, but we draw the line at permitting a man convicted of stealing videotapes a door to his toilet, the chance to spend a night with his family, or the experience of preparing his own dinner in his own shirt. If ensuring freedom for those who may harm us is worth the risk when the costs are high, that must certainly be the case when protecting their rights leaves us safer. ~ Adam Benforado

I wrote poetry in middle school and high school and even through college. It was bad. I just don't think I'm very good at writing poetry. I mean, the distillation, I think, is hard for me, but I love poetry. ~ Jesmyn Ward

About strip clubs and athletes. The best way I can explain why a lot of players end up there is because it's one of the safest places a high-profile person can spend time in a boring city. ~ Shaquille O'Neal

High school was interesting, because I went from a public school middle school to an academy where the first year we were doing Latin, chemistry, biology. I mean, I was woefully unprepared for the type of study. ~ Kyle Chandler

In blue Light nature space the whole world, wide grazing land, the open spaces wind across the land and the sky, blue, high ~ Nils Aslak Valkeapaa

I love like the 80s look - 80s and early 90s, like the high-waisted jeans and the crop tops, and the floral prints, and flowers and stuff like that. Big baggy jumpers ... yeah, stuff like that. ~ Perrie Edwards

He who is silent and bows his head dies every time he does so. He who speaks aloud and walks with his head held high dies only once. ~ Giovanni Falcone

Luxury brands are about elite access. In consumer goods, that's elite cost. In education, it's elite criteria for admission. Minerva is maintaining those high standards, but not artificially limiting the number of people who can meet it ... This really may be redefining education. ~ Kevin Harvey

Find thoughts that feel good, because it is inevitable that you are going to always be moving toward something. So why not be moving toward something that is pleasing? You can't cease to vibrate, and Law of Attraction will not stop responding to the vibration that you are offering. So, expansion is inevitable. You provide it, whether you know you do, or not. The only question is, what is the standard of joy that you are demanding for yourself? From your Nonphysical perspective, it's a high, high standard. ~ Esther Hicks

the ceiling was too high to make out, ~ J.K. Rowling

If the government was going to continue to act as if we didn't exist, if the medical establishment was prone to gridlock over funds, if the drug companies were waiting till the curve got high enough for profit, then we would find our own way. ~ Paul Monette

My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people, with high moral standards - but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home. ~ Hugh Hefner

Richard either didn't hear me, or chose to ignore it. Smart, handsome, junior high science teacher, degree in preternatural biology, what more could i ask for? Give me a minute and I'd think of something. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

People with high blood pressure, diabetes - those are conditions brought about by life style. If you change the life style, those conditions will leave. ~ Dick Gregory

Cabinet members are soon overwhelmed by the insistent demands of running their departments. On the whole, a period in high office consumers intellectual capital; it does not create it ... The less ministers know at the outset, the more dependent they are on the only sources of available knowledge; the permanent officials. ~ Tony Benn

I would write a scientific paper with the devil, if it was on high temperatures. The fellow's probably an authority. ~ Henry Eyring

Bill Muller was a tall grey-haired man with an apparently high level of vitality despite incessant cigarette smoking. Holding everyone's attention by his forceful personality, he described his invention as a way to make a heavy wheel carry strong magnets past electricity-inducing copper coils without needing to fight the electrical drag force which usually opposes rotation and limits how efficient a generator can be. His wheel didn't have any "stuck" position; it moved freely.
"We have a magnetically balanced flywheel."
In his basement workshop, Bill showed us the beginnings of a permanent-magnet generator. ~ Jeane Manning

You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude. ~ Paul Theroux

When I was young and it was someone's birthday, I didn't have the money to buy nice presents so I would take my mom's camera and make a movie parody for whoever's birthday it was. When I'd show it them, they'd die laughing. That reaction was a high for me, and I loved that feeling. ~ David Henrie

I've always longed to have a patch of personal wilderness. Of waist-high grass entwined with wildflowers through which I can prance; within which I can lie down and disappear from sight. ~ Sara Baume

"Born high on the mountain,
Blazing bright under the sun's demise,
Twice blind but still seeing,
The only bulwark against the dark
Watch as the arches declare
Dominion of Light." ~ Sarah K.L. Wilson

I did play Jesus in 'Godspell,' in high school, because I guess I'm a nerd. ~ Jessica Pare

Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more. ~ William Wordsworth

I Can't Make You Love Me.' Bonnie Raitt."
"Oh,Fiorella."
I glared at him a little as I climbed down. "Was that delightful list for your benefit or mine?"
Frankie grabbed my hand and, when I didn't pull away fast enough, tugged me onto his lap,where he wrapped his arms so tightly around me that I couldn't escape. Sometimes his strength still surprises me.He tickled my cheek with his nose. "Don't hate me just because I'm hateful."
"I never do."
Here's the thing. Frankie's taken a lot of hits in his life. He never stays down for long.
"Excuse me!" The mannequin's evil twin was glaring down at us fro her sky-high bootie-heeled heights. Her NM badge told us her name was Victoria. "You cannot do that here!" she snapped.
"Do what?" Frankie returned, matching lockjaw snooty for lockjaw snooty.
She opened and closed her mouth, then hissed, "Canoodle!"
I felt Frankie's hiccup of amusement. "Were we canoodling, snookums?" he asked me. "I rather thought we were about to copulate like bunnies."
I couldn't help it; I laughed out loud. Victoria's mouth thinned into a pale line. The whole thing might have ended with our being escorted out the store's hallowed doors by security. Sadie, as she so often did, momentarily saved us from ourselves.
She stomped out of the dressing room and planted herself in front of us. Ignoring the angry salesgirl completely, she muttered, "I look like a carved pumpkin!"
Frankie took in the skirt, layered ~ Melissa Jensen

We use the effect of centrifugal forces on matter to offer insight into the rotation rate of extreme cosmic objects. Consider pulsars. With some rotating at upward of a thousand revolutions per second, we know that they cannot be made of household ingredients, or they would spin themselves apart. In fact, if a pulsar rotated any faster, say 4,500 revolutions per second, its equator would be moving at the speed of light, which tells you that this material is unlike any other. To picture a pulsar, imagine the mass of the Sun packed into a ball the size of Manhattan. If that's hard to do, then maybe it's easier if you imagine stuffing about a hundred million elephants into a Chapstick casing. To reach this density, you must compress all the empty space that atoms enjoy around their nucleus and among their orbiting electrons. Doing so will crush nearly all (negatively charged) electrons into (positively charged) protons, creating a ball of (neutrally charged) neutrons with a crazy-high surface gravity. Under such conditions, a neutron star's mountain range needn't be any taller than the thickness of a sheet of paper for you to exert more energy climbing it than a rock climber on Earth would exert ascending a three-thousand-mile-high cliff. In short, where gravity is high, the high places tend to fall, filling in the low places - a phenomenon that sounds almost biblical, in preparing the way for the Lord: "Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the roug ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

There are a lot of self important people who make you believe they're artistes and high on the intelligence quotient and I've sat down and listened to them and just been bored. ~ George Hamilton