As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".

Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant.

Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.

Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.

Nothing truly wild is unclean.

The axe and saw are insanely busy, chips are flying thick as snowflakes, and every summer thousands of acres of priceless forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, climate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away in clouds of smoke, while, except in the national parks, not one forest guard is employed.

Never while anything is left of me shall this... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike.