My own journey started long before I left, and was over before I returned.

People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments.

Lennie begged, "Le's do it now. Le's get that place now." "Sure right now. I gotta. We gotta.

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.

I have starved and it isn't nearly as bad as is generally supposed. Four days and a half was my longest stretch. Maybe there are pains that come later. Personally I think terror is the painful part of starvation.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

One must withdraw for a time from life in order to set down that picture.