Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.

There is nothing glamorous or romantic about war. It's mostly about random pointless death and misery.

I'm intrigued by fanatics - people who are seduced by the promise, or the illusion, of the absolute.

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.

Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.

He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.

I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.