As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be no more potent force than religion.

Its not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.

At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.

Achieving the summit of a mountain was tangible, immutable, concrete. The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life. I thrilled in the fresh perspective that came from the tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end.

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

Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.

Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long timeand it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.My point is that you do not need me or anyone elseThe only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness