Quotes from Into the Wild

“‘[S]eemed like a kid who was looking for something, looking for something, just didn’t know what is was’” (Krakeuer 42). 

“Unlike most of us, he was the sort of person who insisted on living out his beliefs” (Krakeuer 67).

“‘There was always a wanderlust in the family, and it was clear early on that Chris had inherited it” (Krakeuer 108). 

“The whole idea was to lose out bearings, to push ourselves into unknown territory. Then we’d run at a slightly slower pace until we found a road we recognized and race home again at full speed. In a sense that’s how Chris lived his entire life” (Krakeuer 112).

These were my favorite quotes from the book because I felt that they really captured the essence of Chris as others saw him. They are all from different people as well, his family, his friends, and  mere acquaintances. Because Into the Wild is the story of Chris’s life as told by others, we never really here what he has to say about all this, and we never get his own description of himself. However, I thought these were the best descriptions because they really connected with the actions and decisions that Chris made on his journey to Alaska. It is interesting to me the way the author tried to delve so deeply into Chris’s life without ever having the chance to talk to Chris. And interesting the way the people he affected chose to describe him. From reading the book, I saw Chris as a go-getter, and as someone who made a decision and went with it and whatever else got thrown at him along that adventure. These four quotes seemed really accurate to me from what I took away from the book about Chris.