“No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's end.”

“If a man wishes to be sure of the road he’s traveling on, then he must close his syes and travel in the dark.”

“one must submit, like a traveller who has to ascend a mountain: if the mountain was not there, the road would be both shorter and pleasanter; but there it is, and he must get over it.”

“It's a contention of Heat Moon's -- believing as he does any traveler who misses the journey misses about all he's going to get-- that a man becomes his attentions. His observations and curiosity, they make and remake him.”

“A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead.”

“A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.”