If you don't take it, I'm going to throw it away," Alex cheerfully retorted. "I don't want to know what time it is. I don't want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.

I was dimly aware that I might be getting in over my head. But that only added to the scheme’s appeal. That it wouldn’t be easy was the whole point.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only...from human relationships. God has placed it all around us...and all you have to do is reach for it.

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

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

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.

And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why-- which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.