Into The Wild

I LOVE THIS MOVIE. I read the book years ago and fell in love with it. I saw the movie for the second time last week. It always brings a rush of emotion for me. If you haven't seen it ... you should.

The following quotes by Chris McCandless are attributed to him by Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild book, through letters and postcards to friends, and excerpted from Chris McCandless' journal entries.

Two years he walks the earth.
No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.
— Alexander Supertramp
May 1992

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
— Chris McCandless

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

"The core of mans' spirit comes from new experiences."
— Chris McCandless

"If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed."
— Chris McCandless

"Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."
— Chris expanded on the original quote by Henry David Thoreau

"Mr. Franz I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one."
— Chris McCandless in Into the Wild movie, speaking to Ronald Franz.

"I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!" — Chris McCandless' journal from Alaska

"I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it— she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do."
— Sharon Olds, May 1937
(In the movie, Chris reads this to his sister, Carine, outside the restaurant)

"I have lived through much and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet, secluded life in the country with the possibility of being useful to people..."
— Leo Tolstoy

"...the sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head..."
— Bear Meat by Primo Levi