There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won t.

I have not been on any river that has more of a distinctive personality than does the Missouri River. It's a river that immediately presents to the traveler, 'I am a grandfather spirit. I have a source; I have a life.'

If you’re gonna run away from home, take a dog along.

Education is thinking, and thinking is looking for yourself and seeing what’s there, not what you got told was there.

Ego, craving distinction, belongs to the narrowness of now; but self, looking for union, belongs to the past and future, to the continuum, to the outside. Of all the visions of the Grandfathers, the greatest is this: To seek the high concord, a man looks not deeper within – he reaches farther out.

American history is parking lots.

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.

Never did get my curiosity cured,′ she said. ‘Some people sit around and wait for the world to poke them. Right here in this old curiosity shop of a world, they say, ‘Poke me, world,’ Well, you have to keep the challenges coming on. Make them up if necessary.

Franchises and chains have come to dominate small communities, but those same chains have eliminated a lot of the greasy spoons, places you didn’t want to eat in the first place.

I like the digressive kind of traveling, where there’s not a particular, set, goal.