“During an ordinary Quest day, a fifty-pound dog needs the caloric equivalent of twenty double cheeseburgers, and more if the temperature drops.”

“At 30-below, mushers will begin to put fleece jackets on their more sensitive dogs. Males are affixed with pile jockstraps, "peter heaters," to guard against frostbite.”

“Newspapers are a bad habit, the reading equivalent of junk food. What happens to me is that I seize upon an issue in the news—the issue is the moral/philosophical, political/intellectual equivalent of a cheeseburger with everything on it; but for the duration of my interest in it, all my other interests are consumed by it, and whatever appetites and capacities I may have had for detachment and reflection are suddenly subordinate to this cheeseburger in my life! I offer this as self-criticism; but what it means to be "political" is that you welcome these obsessions with cheeseburgers—at great cost to the rest of your life.”

“Don’t underrate ordinary human decency,” Josh said quietly. “There’s more of heaven in a guy who hands a cold soda to a hot, tired panhandler than there is in fifty moral philosophers.”

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

“Dying's a fearful popular activity these days so we often double 'em up.”

“If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.”