How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
In Pakistan's Karakoram […] more than sixty of the world's tallest mountains lord their severe alpine beauty over a witnessless high-altitude wilderness. Other than snow leopard and ibex, so few living creatures have passed through this parent icescape that the presence of the world's second-highest mountain, K2, was little more than a rumor to the outside world until the turn of the twentieth century. (1.1)
The first paragraph of the book isn't about Greg Mortenson—it's about Pakistan, letting us know that this severe, yet beautiful, land is going to be a character all to itself.
Quote #2
The peaks were painted in garish, sugary colors—all pinks and violets and baby blues—and the sky, just before sunrise, was windless and clear. (2.3)
This quote is a sharp contrast to the last one. While the first paragraph of the book is all ice and danger, this quote makes the mountains seem like Candy Land or a Mario Kart track.
Quote #3
The panorama of colossi blinded him. Gasherbrum, Broad Peak, Mitre Peak, Muztagh Tower—these ice-sheathed giants, naked in the embrace of unfiltered sunlight, burned like bonfires. (2.10)
Hikers get distracted by these named peaks as though they're trophies. It's easy for the small villages, like Korphe, to get ignored amid all this majesty.