My reasoning, if one can call it that, was inflamed by the scatter shot passions of youth and a literary diet overly rich in the works of Nietzshe, Kerouac, and John Menlove Edwards.

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

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

I think I understand that religious faith which makes the holy brave and strong; my strength is just somewhere else--it's in myself...I do not fear what may await me, though I'm equally confident that nothing awaits.

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.

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.

It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it's great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.