What is left to be afraid of?’ And he said, ‘The possibility that a life itself may prove to be the most worthy struggle.

The Northwestern Carpathians, in which I was raised, were a hard place, as unforgiving as the people who lived there, but the Alpine landscape into which Zlee and I were sent that early winter seemed...

Like the body, courage, too, is a thing weakened, especially when we are young and invincible. We can’t give one the rest it needs and expect the other to protect us. Don’t anger Nature with...

The only difference between life here and on the battlefield was there we believed that the outcome of the war would be different, and so fought to that end. Here we were reminded of our...

I had never seen anyone fight and I had never been taught to defend myself. But I knew hurt and never wondered that day what it was I had to do if I didn’t want...

I prayed for death so as not to live in madness.

I longed only to turn back and climb and begin life all over again in a place where I might find the peace I’d once known in mountains of another time and another place, and...