"

Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our ...more

"

From elementary school through high school, my siblings and I were hectored to excel in every class, to win medals in science fairs, to be chosen prin...more

"

He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brac...more

"

I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do...more

"

I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do...more

"

The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive.

"

I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to apprec...more

"

According to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless's beliefs, a challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn't a challenge at a...more

"

I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldn’t resist stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over the brink (…) That was a very diffe...more

"

Unlike Muir and Thoreau, McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder nature or the world at large but, rather, to explore the inner co...more

"

Now what is history? It is the centuries of systematic explorations of the riddle of death, with a view to overcoming death. That’s why people discove...more

"

But [Everett] and McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. That’s what was great about them. They tried. Not many do.

"

make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to at...more

"

I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.