Cindy Ross quotes:

Take nothing for granted. Not one blessed, cool mountain day or one hellish, desert day or one sweaty, stinky, hiking companion. It is all a gift.

Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits.

Long distance hiking is not a vacation, it's too long for that. It's not recreation, too much toil and pain involved. It is, we decide, a way of life, a very simplified Spartan way of living ... life on the move ... heavy packs, sweating brow; they make you appreciate warm sunshine, companionship, cool water. The best way to appreciate these things that are precious and important in life it is take them away.