Quotes & Sayings About Mccandless

Data is the kind of ubiquitous resource that we can shape to provide new innovations and new insights, and it's all around us, and it can be mined very easily. — David McCandless

I saw leaving any situation where I was treated with disrespect as evidence of my courage. I wanted my daughters to learn that lesson of worth from me. — Carine McCandless

I was seeing too many Walt McCandlesses in the world and not enough Chrises. — Carine McCandless

Everett was strange,' Sleight concedes. 'Kind of different. But him and McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. That's what was great about them. They tried. Not many do.' (pg. 96) — Jon Krakauer

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

No phone. No pool. No pets. No cigarettes. Ultimate freedom ... No longer to be poisoned by civilization, he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become Lost in the Wild. — Christopher McCandless

To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Supertramp, master of his own destiny. — Anonymous

Why can't you just understand that not having a plan is my plan?" Chris implored. "I don't know exactly where I'll be. That's the whole point, the freedom of it. I've been so structured with school and sports and work - everything has been scheduled and laid out for me. I just want to get out of that mundane existence and purely enjoy life for a while. I'll decide on the fly where I want to go next. — Carine McCandless

Everett was a loner, but he liked people too damn much to stay down there and live the rest of his life in secret. A lot of us are like that [ ... ]: We like companionship, see, but we can't stand to be around people for very long. So we get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again. Everett was strange. Kind of strange. But him and [Christopher] McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. They tried. Not many do. (Ken Sleight) — David Roberts

In an endless jungle of websites with text-based content, a beautiful image with a lot of space and colour can be like walking into a clearing. It's a relief. — David McCandless

I think emotion is just anything that is emotional, you know, people can feel with music. Music is already so emotional, like the strings, the chords, and the notes and the melodies and stuff. And then you throw on a topic that everyone can relate to. That's gonna be real music. — Sam McCandless

Personally, I find visualisations great for helping me understand the world and for sifting the huge amounts of information that deluge me every day. — David McCandless

...if you plan everything out completely from beginning to end, you destroy your chance for adventure. — Carine McCandless

[Chris] gave his life in exchange for knowledge and his story is his contribution to the world. I feel complete now to put this story behind me as it was on my mind for quite some time. — Krakauer Jon

In coming to Alaska, McCandless yearned to wander uncharted country, to find a blank spot on the map. In 1992, however, there were no more blank spots on the map - -not in Alaska, not anywhere. But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with an elegant solution to this dilemma: He simply got rid of the map. In his own mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita. — Jon Krakauer

Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around be nomadic, make each day a new horizon.
-Chris McCandless — Jon Krakauer

It seemed like everything became centered and peaceful when there was no choice but to make nature the focus. — Carine McCandless

Immediately after graduating, with honors, from Emory University in the summer of 1990, McCandless dropped out of sight. He changed his name, gave the entire balance of a twenty-four-thousand-dollar savings account to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet. And then he invented a new life for himself, taking up residence at the ragged margin of our society, wandering across North America in search of raw, transcendent experience. — Jon Krakauer

The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that fine crystal glass had to be cared for or may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they didn't seem to know or care that their course of their secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of his other son was for Chris a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turned like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow. Suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris's sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence as well. — Jon Krakauer

By design McCandless came into the country with insufficient provisions, and he lacked certain pieces of equipment deemed essential by many Alaskans: a large-caliber rifle, map and compass, an ax. This has been regarded as evidence not just of stupidity but of the even greater sin of arrogance. — Jon Krakauer

Driving west out of Atlanta, he intended to invent an utterly new life for himself, one in which he would be free to wallow in unfiltered experience. To symbolize the complete severance from his previous life, he even adopted a new name. No longer would he answer to Chris McCandless; he was now Alexander Such ertramp, master of his own destiny. — Jon Krakauer

Happiness is only real, when shared. — Christopher McCandless

You don't need human relationships to be happy, God has placed it all around us. — Christopher McCandless

I love information. I want to stay current. I don't want to be under-informed. But I'm busy. Sometimes, I need an instant overview of a situation that I can grasp in a second. — David McCandless

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 — Christopher McCandless

Christopher McCandless:I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things. — Shunryu Suzuki

You will see things and meet people and there is so much to learn from them. — Christopher Johnson McCandless

Visualizing information is a form of knowledge compression. — David McCandless

He wasn't antisocial - he always had friends, and everybody liked him - but he could go off and entertain himself for hours. He didn't seem to need toys or friends. He could be alone without being lonely. — Carine McCandless

The people follow him."
"Because they have no choice. They follow, but do they love him?"
"Some do," Appah Rao answered. "But what does it matter? Why should a ruler want his people's love? Their obedience, yes, but love? Love is for children, McCandless, and for gods and for women. — Bernard Cornwell

But in reality 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. — Christopher McCandless

Perhaps strength doesn't reside in having never been broken, but in the courage required to grow strong in the broken places. - Kristen — Carine McCandless

Happiness real only when shared. — Christopher McCandless

Deliberate living: Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to your immediate environment and its concerns - A job, a task, a book; anything requiring efficient concentration (Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you — Christopher McCandless

A month later Billie sits at her dining room table, sifting through the pictorial record of Chris's final days. It is all she can do to force herself to examine the fuzzy snapshots. As she studies the pictures, she breaks down from time to time, weeping as only a mother who has outlived a child can weep, betraying a sense of loss so huge and irreparable that the mind balks at taking its measure. Such bereavement, witnessed at close range, makes even the most eloquent apologia for high-risk activities ring fatuous and hollow. - describing the mother of Chris McCandless after learning of his starvation in the wild — Jon Krakauer

The life and simple beauty of it is too good to pass up — Christopher McCandless

It's history as it should have happened. It's history made better. — R.A. McCandless

To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrestled from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things than came easily. — Jon Krakauer

As a young man, I was unlike McCandless in many important regards; most notably, I possessed neither his intellect nor his lofty ideals. But I believe we were similarly affected by the skewed relationships we had with out fathers. And I suspect we had a similar intensity, a similar heedlessness, a similar agitation of the soul. — Jon Krakauer

If you want something in this life, reach out and grab it. — Christopher McCandless

Over the years, online, we've laid down a huge amount of information and data, and we irrigate it with networks and connectivity, and it's been worked and tilled by unpaid workers and governments. — David McCandless

I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone. This is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. — Christopher McCandless

Make each day a new horizon. — Christopher McCandless

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

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. — Christopher McCandless

Happiness isn't real unless it is shared. — Christopher McCandless

It is hardly unusual for a young man to be drawn to a pursuit considered reckless by his elders; engaging in risky behavior is a rite of passage in our culture no less than in most others. 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. It can be argued that youthful derring-do is in fact evolutionarily adaptive, a behavior encoded in our genes. McCandless, in his fashion, merely took risk-taking to its logical extreme. — Jon Krakauer

But [Everett] and McCandless, at least they tried to follow their dream. That's what was great about them. They tried. Not many do. — Jon Krakauer

I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all! — Christopher McCandless

What I love - and I'm a journalist - and what I love is finding hidden patterns; I love being a data detective. — David McCandless

McCandless read and reread The Call of the Wild, White Fang, "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," "The Wit of Porportuk." He was so enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction, constructions of the imagination that had more to do with London's romantic sensibilities than with the actualities of life in the subarctic wilderness. McCandless conveniently overlooked the fact that London himself had spent just a single winter in the North and that he'd died by his own hand on his California estate at the age of forty, a fatuous drunk, obese and pathetic, maintaining a sedentary existence that bore scant resemblance to the ideals he espoused in print. — Jon Krakauer

Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. — Christopher McCandless

It is a bad thing not to be able to stand solitude. It is a wonderful thing to embrace it, and I was ready. — Carine McCandless

Keep moving forward and be true to yourself. You are the only one who can ensure your own happiness. — Carine McCandless

I feel that every day, all of us now are being blasted by information design. It's being poured into our eyes through the Web, and we're all visualizers now; we're all demanding a visual aspect to our information. There's something almost quite magical about visual information. It's effortless; it literally pours in. — David McCandless

It is important in life not to be strong, but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once. If you want something in life, reach out and grab it. — Christopher McCandless

I've decided I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up. — Christopher McCandless

Happiness is only real if shared. — Christopher McCandless

It is a bad thing," he said, "not to be able to stand solitude. — Carine McCandless

Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil. — David McCandless

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. 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. The hint of what was concealed in those shadows terrified me, but I caught sight of something in the glimpse, some forbidden and elemental riddle that was no less compelling than the sweet, hidden petals of a woman's sex.
In my case - and, I believe, in the case of Chris McCandless - that was a very different thing from wanting to die. — Jon Krakauer

S.O.S. I NEED YOUR HELP. I AM INJURED, NEAR DEATH, AND TOO WEAK TO HIKE OUT OF HERE. I AM ALL ALONE, THIS IS NO JOKE. IN THE NAME OF GOD, PLEASE REMAIN TO SAVE ME. I AM OUT COLLECTING BERRIES CLOSE BY AND SHALL RETURN THIS EVENING. THANK YOU, CHRIS MCCANDLESS. AUGUST? — Jon Krakauer

Surely all Americans have the right to give their money only to those causes which they support. But what kind of society has this created? A society where the ignorant reign. A society where enlightened must hold their tongues. A nation whose politicians must profess half-hearted devotion to an ancient fable or face the disastrous consequences of speaking their true mind. — Christopher McCandless

Tramping is too easy with all this money. My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal.
As for me, I've decided that I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty of it is just too good to pass up. — Christopher McCandless

I would rather write songs and then practice with the band. Just the band camaraderie is awesome and then writing music and then just listening to it and saying 'Dude, we made that music!' That's really fun. — Sam McCandless

Happiness only real when shared. — Christopher McCandless

It's not about the things he gave us, Carine," he said softly. "It's about the memories. You can't touch those with your hands. Everything you can touch with your hands is just stuff. — Carine McCandless

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

Information design has been around since the 1970s. Pioneers like Yale University design guru Edward Tufte and design agency Pentagram have long known and used its power. But now with the rise of the Internet, it's having something of a second birth. — David McCandless

By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes: a sort of information map. And when you're lost in information, an information map is kind of useful. — David McCandless

I think it's therapeutic when we play. It's just like therapy. — Sam McCandless

You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. — Christopher McCandless

That's the purity of nature. It may be harsh in its honesty, but it never lies to you. — Carine McCandless

On July 2, McCandless finished reading Tolstoy's "Family Happiness", having marked several passages that moved him:
"He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others ...
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 to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire?" ... — Jon Krakauer

In trying to understand McCandless, I inevitably came to reflect on other, larger subjects as well: the grip wilderness has on the American imagination, the allure high-risk activities hold for young men of a certain mind, the complicated, highly charged bond that exists between fathers and sons. The result of this meandering inquiry is the book now before you. — Jon Krakauer

He measured himself and those around him by an impossibly rigorous moral code. — Carine McCandless