He makes some good points. He is at his best telling his stories of survival. But you also run into statements like:
Those who can control that urge to survive, live. Those who do can't, die.
"That urge" being an irrational, emotional urge to do something that kills you under the circumstance. Well, duh!
When a patient is told that he has six months to live, he has two choices: to accept the news and die, or to rebel and live.
- or get a second opinion
- or rebel and die
- or accept and they save you anyway.
Then we go into nature, where we are least among equals with all other creatures.
Really? Amazing that Homo sap. survived at the bottom of the survival ladder.
[In combat] . . . only my not being there is going to prevent [my death]
Nevertheless, millions have survived to the end of their respectrive wars. I had four uncles in combat in WWII. One died. One was wounded. Two survived unscathed. Other factors caused death or survival, such as a well-aimed torpedo, good medical care, skill, luck, or . . . ..
Plan for everything to take eight times as long as you expect it to take.
Just how does that work in reality? Plan to fail so you always meet plan goals?
EVERYONE WHO dies out there dies of confusion.
You can't interview the dead. How do you know 100% were confused? 25% die of heart attacks.
One of the many baffling mysteries concerns who survives and who doesn't
"Concerns"? Does he mean the mystery is "why some die and some survive"?
"Is"? If it IS baffling mystery, why are we buying his book?
The Boy Scouts in its original conception was a survival school.
The Boy Scouts in its original conception was a school for citizenship and character. We know this because the guy who started Boy Scouting repeatedly said exacty what it was intended it to be.
The Stoics are the best survival instructors.
Stoicism may be a good philosophy for survival, but . . .
If he'd though of death, he might not have bothered [to make the effort to live]. . ..
The certainty of death suddenly energised Simpson.
Same guy. Same survival tale.
To revere pain and fear, to embrace friction, are bedrock skills of survival.
At least sadism and survival both begin with an "S."
Sure, it takes luck to be a survivor.
Nothing can truly be said to happen by chance.
[E]verything, good and bad, eminates from within.
Deep. Very deep.
Funny that he spends so much space talking about pilots. Uncle Harold, shot down three times in POS P-39's and an Ace+2 in a P-38, a test pilot after WWII, had a little sign on his desk; "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."
[Survivors]... believe anything is possible and act accordingly.
Survivors don't expect or even hope to be rescued
You're already flying upside down.
That is, every day for everyone is equally a survival situation.
