The Last American Man Quotes
"What a wild life! What a fresh kind of existence!"
"You can't let your babies play in those woods! There are poisonous snakes out there!"
"For heaven’s sake! My children always knew the difference between poisonous snakes and regular snakes! They did just fine out there."
"In North America, construction jobs which the European countries do not accomplish in centuries are completed in a few years."
"Break out of the box! You don’t have to live like this because people tell you it’s the only way."
"I suppose I was a bad mother," Mrs. Conway says today, not very convincingly.
"I moved into the woods when I was seventeen years old, not much older than you are today..."
"The civilized world is much scarier than the woods."
"Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes."
"I live in nature, where everything is connected, circular."
"I first met Eustace Conway in New York City, of all places."
"The American boy came of age by leaving civilization and striking out toward the hills."
"Every American considers that it's impossible for a foreigner to teach him anything."
"It is probably not surprising, then, that when I turned twenty-two I decided that I would not be satisfied by going on to graduate school."
"I bought a pair of rattlesnake boots last week, and I've beat them to shit already doing chores in the corral, but, hell, that's what they're for."
"I hope that I am right, and that I am following a path that is indeed good for me."
"What followed were probably the happiest years of Eustace’s life. And the freest."
"He lived in and around the mountains near Gastonia."
"He carved his bowls and plates from wood polished with beaver fat."
"I slept until seven in the morning, when the sun beaming down on the smoky canvas called my attention to the world."
"His teepee was wonderful—a fort and a temple, a home so satisfyingly light and transient."
"Eustace Conway, it should be said, does not take much truck in working under the authority of other people."
"They were hiking twenty-five and thirty miles a day on barely any food."
"They ate its meat; they ate its brains; they ate its feet; and, still famished, they ate every last one of its bones."
"There is only truth to be found—no lies, no shams, no illusions, no hypocrisy."
"What she then added was a little provocative."
"Their adventure started right off with an adventure."
"The sun has gone behind the ridge and the shadows are starting to play games in the forest."
"I believe God helped plan this trip before I even knew of it."
"I am unique in that I live in an Indian teepee."
"He lived off the land like an old-time mountain man."
"He was a creature of striking vigor, one who looked to have been carved from hardwood."
"The moral of Return to Shady Grove was a lie."
"I need something new, fresh, alive, stimulating."
"I don’t want my life to be nothing, to not make a difference."
"It wasn’t enough for him, in other words, to sit around his teepee working on moccasins and listening to the rainfall."
"The environment is so new. It really isn’t a problem for them. It is my stress over their slow, ignorant pace that bothers me."
"What is important? Boundaries (personal) are at stake here."
"I have worked very hard to make this place what it is. What have they done?"
"I am back now after a six-hour depressed nap in the middle of the day."
"What I feel inspired to write today is this deep emotional dissatisfaction with the reality of our times."
"I still love this man. I still have every gift he made for me."
"He was obsessed with making money, with buying land, with success, and he was always on the road."
"Truth is sacred to me, it is me. I live by it. I die by it."
"How much abuse can I take? I have already witnessed my Dad’s cruelty...I needed your support—I got a backstabbing."
"If love is real it endures all, forgives all, and even survives all."
"I feel dizzy learning you, dizzy meeting you. I do feel we were meant to come together."
"I am high from meeting Marcia. She has been a blessing to me—an inspiration and a new hope."
"You have the most intelligent glossy black hair I’ve ever seen. Your smile and eyes are hauntingly talented."
"I’m holding the tape recorder in one hand and the pack horse in the other...Right now I’m as free as anyone in America."
"We did not know what we were doing. And that is a fact."
"I could live on nothing when I stop eating and sleeping."
"I alone comprehend the true plan and the means of fulfilling it." —Charles Fourier, Utopian
"The youth of each generation should be aware of the role some of them will be privileged to play in the progress of man toward a Higher Destiny."
"More enduring than skyscrapers, bridges, cathedrals, and other material symbols of man’s achievement are the invisible monuments of wisdom, inspiration, and example erected in the hearts and minds of men."
"As you throw the weight of your influence on the side of the good, the true and the beautiful, your life will achieve an endless splendor."
"We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully—growing!" —John Caldwell Calhoun, 1817
"My way is the only way. And I believe the best work is done when people surrender to one authority, like in the military."
"Just because you’re eating out of the garbage, doesn’t mean you need to eat garbage."
"It reminds me of what my old Appalachian neighbor Lonnie Carlton said: ‘We used to live on less than what folks throw away these days.’"
"But I can promise that if you stay with the apprenticeship program for at least two years, and if you do what I say, you’ll acquire the hard skills that will give you a degree of self-sufficiency almost unknown in our culture."
"You go beyond the necessary because you have a love for the aesthetic."
"If I want slate shingles, I’m going to have slate shingles."
"The fundamental philosophy of my dream house is similar to my feeling about my horses."
"The first thing I’ll see is a stone waterfall that goes up over thirty feet."
"One is a greenhouse, so I’ll can have a plethora of fresh greens and vegetables all year."
"Marble countertops, handmade cabinets with antler handles, open shelving."
"I could build it myself, but I won’t even break ground for it until I have a wife."
"He is halfway finished with his life. He has achieved much."
"He has seen more of this world than most of us will ever read about."
"He has, about seventy-five times a year, done things that people told him were impossible to do."
"He has acquired and protected the land he always wanted."
"He has paid attention to the laws of the universe, and that attention has rewarded him with proficiency in a dazzling range of subjects."
"But there are cracks. And he can feel the wind blowing through them."
"It’s the first kind thing my father has ever said to me."
"I don’t know how to open my fearful heart and even think about it."
"What does this mean, Dad? What the fuck are you up to, Dad?"
"He cares for his little brother Judson more than he cares for anyone."
"He and my dad both pride themselves on being great communicators."
"I love my brother, but I don’t know how to deal with that."
"I can’t stand it. Some mornings I wake up and think, wouldn't it be great to have a brother with all the skills and interests of Eustace, but who was humble, too?"
"I believe there is an absolute right and wrong way to live, and I can teach my children that, right here in this house."
"Eustace and Martha both found the world "out there" to be corrupted and repulsive, so both designed their own worlds."
"He should be well into a family, deep into the process of childrearing and heartily comforted by the solidity of marriage."
"I am looking for a mate—an energetic, intelligent, adventuresome person like yourself is really attractive to me."
"I want that ‘perfect’ love-filled American dream ‘fantasy’ relationship, if you will."
"Please take me seriously on this and not let another protective mechanism keep you from finding in me what your heart truly desires."
"But this 'stand-in-the-wind-tunnel-of-my-love' approach hasn’t worked."
"But Eustace has lived without love before; that’s a familiar sensation for him."
"Whereas he has never lived a moment of his adult life without control."
"He’s been trying to help her bring more order and discipline to her family."
"He’s lent her books from his library written by the Amish about how to properly 'train up' a child."
"Using the strict old Amish system, Ashley has gotten her children on a more solid schedule."
"The children are still a handful, of course. Because there are three of them and because they are children."
"In the end, his decision will almost certainly be a showdown between the two things he craves most: absolute love and absolute control."
"He is, in the end, a teacher. And like all teachers, he may have to accept the reality that only a few of his students over a few decades will truly be affected by a few lessons."
"First, he slept on the ground and wore furs."
"He improves and expands because he is so clever and so resourceful that he cannot help himself."
"He is not compelled to rest in the enjoyment of what he already knows how to do; he must keep moving on."
"He is unstoppable. And we are also unstoppable."