Jon Krakauer wrote the nonfiction book Into the Wild in 1996.
It is based on the actual story of Christopher McCandless, a young man who abandoned his family and friends to live off the land in the Alaskan wilderness.
Let’s explore the top quotes from Into the Wild novel.
Table of Contents
Into the Wild Quotes by Jon Krakauer
“It’s not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“That’s what was great about him. He tried. Not many do.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“The core of mans’ spirit comes from new experiences.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I’m going to have to be real careful not to accept any gifts from them in the future because they will think they have bought my respect.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Children can be harsh judges when it comes to their parents, disinclined to grant clemency.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I’m going to paraphrase Thoreau here… rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness… give me truth. ” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God’s light shines upon you.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
Other Book Quotes: The Lord of the Rings Quotes by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Wolf of Wall Street Quotes by Jordan Belfort
Quotes from Into the Wild
“What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“The pursuit of knowledge, he maintained, was a worthy objective in its own right and needed no external validation.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“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.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“He needed his solitude at times, but he wasn’t a hermit. He did a lot of socializing. Sometimes I think it was like he was storing up company for the times when he knew nobody would be around.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I thought climbing the Devil’s Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I was stirred by the dark mystery of mortality. I couldn’t resist stealing up to the edge of doom and peering over the brink (…) That was a very different thing from wanting to die.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
Top Into the Wild Quotes by Jon Krakauer
“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others…” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“An extended stay in the wilderness inevitably directs one’s attention outward as much as inward, and it is impossible to live off the land without developing both a subtle understanding of, and a strong emotional bond with, that land and all it holds.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty…” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I now walk into the wild.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“You will see things and meet people and there is so much to learn from them.” ― Christopher Johnson McCandless, Into the Wild
“You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
Famous Into the Wild Quotes
“Nothing is more damaging 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.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“The revelation that he was merely human, and frightfully so, was beyond my power to forgive.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life.” ― John Krakauer, Into the Wild
“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 damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“We like companionship, see, but we can’t stand to be around people for very long. So we go get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Some people feel like they don’t deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“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.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“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…” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
Great Into the Wild Quotes
“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.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Danger has always held a certain allure. That, in large part, is why so many teenagers drive too fast and drink too much and take too many drugs, why it has always been so easy for nations to recruit young men to go to war.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I read somewhere… how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong… to measure yourself at least once.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage. I didn’t yet appreciate its terrible finality or the havoc it could wreak on those who’d entrusted the deceased with their hearts.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th Century invention and I don’t want one. You don’t need to worry about me; I have a college education. I’m not destitute. I’m living like this by choice.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I understood what he was doing, that he had spent four years fulfilling the absurd and tedious duty of graduating from college and now he was emancipated from that world of abstraction, false security, parents, and material excess.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“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.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“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.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it… I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
“Happiness is only real when shared.” ~ Jon Krakauer (quotes from Into the Wild).
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