I am not a storyteller . . . not like the others. I only have one tale to tell.

You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing.

A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.

Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance.

It's a terrible thing, isn't it, the way we throw people away?

Reluctance to begin is quick to befriend procrastination. . . .

In each man's heart there lies a hole. A dark abyss of need, the filling of which takes precedence over all else.

His words had tossed the book that was her life into the air and the pages had been blown into disarray, could never be put back together to tell the same story.

It was such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth, to feel at one's fingertips the possibilities of the new season.

There's a market for mysteries for adults. That feeling of opening a book and delving inside and not coming out until you've closed the book.

But history is a faithless teller whose cruel recourse to hindsight makes fools of its actors.

You make the rest of the beautiful things in the world cry for even trying at all. You make it hard for me to breathe.

Sickness occurs when we desire what we need and what’s desirable with equal intensity, suffering our lack of perfection as if we were suffering for lack of bread.

What is a monster? Something that grows hair all over and howls? Could be. But the real monster is within, and when it comes out, it’s as fugly as you see it, or as it lets you see it.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past As wholly wasted wholly vain If rising on its wrecks at last To something nobler we attain.

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don't believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can't possibly foresee now.

I have a deep sympathy with war; it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.

Trying to lead an interesting life, a fruitful life, is a big challenge.

INTO THE WILD was a lot of fun, but challenging, 'cause you can get lost in the movement.

I'm missing a knuckle, it's crushed inside my hand at the moment.

You won't find average Americans on the left or on the right. You'll find them at Kmart.