“Freedom begins between the ears.”

“The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture. The more freedom the writer possesses, the greater the moral obligation to play the role of critic.”

“Somewhere in the depths of solitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.”

“We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct administration by their fellow men.”

“The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.”

“Why this cult of wilderness?... because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.”

“The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”