"No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. (47)"

• McCandless had this highlighted in a book that was found with him. Most would infer from reading this, that he agreed with Thoreau's ideas.  He thought that his life should be lived with its focus on nature and that you should try to look beyond what you would ordinarily see and try to see the good in it.

"McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well- relieved that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it.  He had fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. (55)"

• McCandless thought that his life should be lived the way he wanted it without others influencing his decisions.  I order to avoid those influences he avoided having relationships with anyone. He was also afraid that the emotional aspects of those relationships would get in the way of his happiness.

     "Oh how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!         

     McCandless starred and bracketed the paragraph and circled 'refuge in nature' in black ink. 

     Next to 'And so it turned out that only a life similar to a life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness. . .And this was most vexing of all.' he noted, 'HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.' (189)"

• When he started his trip, McCandless thought you should live with what you needed and avoided companionship.  He saw the relationships and emotions that most other people are accustomed to as unnecessary and and meaningless.  He thought that closeness with others was boring and that living on your own in nature was more exiting. Towards the end of his life he began to see that even if you have what you enjoy, which for him was nature, that it is more enjoyable if you have that companionship and someone to share it with.

"He also turned the tables and started lecturing the grandfatherly father about the shortcomings of his sedentary existence, urging the eighty-year-old to sell most of his belongings, and live on the road. (51)"

• McCandless thought that his life should be lived with only the things that you need and on the road.  He believed it would help help him and others to live a longer and more fulfilled life.  He believed this so strongly he even encouraged those around him to do the same.

"I am reborn. This is my dawn. Real life has just begun. Deliberate Living: Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to your immediate environment and its concerns, example- A job, a task, a book; anything requiring efficient concentration (Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has no value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you)."

• McCandless thought his life should be lived as simple as possible with its main focus on what is happening at the moment. Thoreau like Mccandless thought your attention should be on the basics of life.  

"The boy made some mistakes on the Stampede Trail, but confusing a caribou with a moose wasn't among them. (178)"

• Krakauer thought that McCandles had made some mistakes on his trip because he ended up dead at the end of it, but this quote also shows that he also thought he did many things correctly and for the most part knew what he was doing.

"Nor was McCandless endowed with a surfeit of common sense. Many who knew him have commented, unbidden, that he seemed to have great difficulty seeing the trees, as it were, for the forest. 'Alex wasn’t a total space cadet or anything,' says Westerberg; 'don’t get me wrong. But there was gaps in his thinking. I remember once I went over to the house, walked into the kitchen, and noticed a god-awful stink. I mean it smelled nasty in there. I opened the microwave, and the bottom of it was filled with rancid grease. Alex had been using it to cook chicken, and it never occurred to him that the grease had to drain somewhere. It wasn’t that he was too lazy to clean it up-Alex always kept things real neat and orderly-it was just that he hadn’t noticed the grease.' (62-63)"

• Those that personally knew McCandless knew that sometimes he had trouble seeing beyond the initial result of something and into the long term. This quote shows an example of a time when he did this at home. He also did that on his trip to Alaska except this time it had a much more permanent affect.