“[...] it is safer to wander without a guide through an unmapped country than to trust completely a map traced by men who came only as tourists and often with biased judgement. ”
“People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking monsters only came out at night. But safety – like light – is a façade.”
“It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.”
“In coming to Alaska, McCandless yearned to wander uncharted country, to find a blank spot on the map. In 1992, however, there were no more blank spots on the map—-not in Alaska, not anywhere. But Chris, with his idiosyncratic logic, came up with an elegant solution to this dilemma: He simply got rid of the map. In his own mind, if nowhere else, the terra would thereby remain incognita.”
“I never trust the airlines from those countries where the pilots believe in the afterlife. You are safer when they don't.”
“Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.”