Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb had been blunted, in short, by a bunch of small satisfactions that added up to something like happiness.

The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.

The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It's like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance.

Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.

Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.

To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily.

Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.