David Guterson said this quote

To deny that there was this dark side of life would be like pretending that the cold of winter was somehow only a temporary illusion, a way station on the way to the higher reality of long, warm, pleasant summers. But summer, it turned out, was no more real than the snow that melted in wintertime.

~ David Guterson

The world was incomprehensibly intricate, and yet this forest made a simple sense in her heart that she felt nowhere else.

~ David Guterson

I say this because as an older man I am prone to ponder matters in the light of death in a way that you are not. I am like a traveler from Mars who looks down in astonishment at what passes here. And what I see is the same human frailty passed from generation to generation. What I see is again and again the same sad human frailty. We hate one another; we are the victims of irrational fears. And there is nothing in the stream of human history to suggest we are going to change this. But--I digress, confess that. I merely wish to point out that in the face of such a world you have only yourselves to rely on. You have only the decision you must make, each of you, alone. And will you contribute to the indifferent forces that ceaselessly conspire toward injustice? Or will you stand up against this endless tide and in the face of it be truly human?

~ David Guterson

When I think about John William now, I think about someone who followed through, and then I'm glad not to have followed through, to still be breathing, to still be here with people, to still be walking in the mountains, and to still be uncertain--even with all this cash on hand--in a way I seem to have no choice about. I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live.

~ David Guterson