Ben Saunders Quotes

I now walk into the wild.

I've been able to carve out spaces for myself. At Sundance, I'm in the mountains - my property is private. I get on a horse and ride for three, four hours. Sometimes five. I get lost. But when I'm in, I'm in.

I longed from a tiny child to get away on my own. When I was five, I walked out along the sands from Redcar, nearly all the way to Hartlepool.

I need this wild life, this freedom.

No phone. No pool. No pets. No cigarettes. Ultimate freedom... No longer to be poisoned by civilization, he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become Lost in the Wild.

Yeah, I like going away for camp. It brings out the savagery.

Maybe it was escapism, but I had become obsessed with going to remote locations and keeping myself behind the camera.

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.

Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. Let the noon find you by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

I am happiest in the brush and by myself - whether that's the woods of northern Minnesota or the wilds of Alaska behind a dogteam, picking through the foothills of the mountains by my ranch in New Mexico on horseback, or on the ship of my sailboat on the Pacific - so I guess it made sense to me that both Brian and Samuel would find their challenges and adventures, if that's what you call them, in the woods.

The story of 'Highway' is completely about travel. It is about the fascination of travel to an extent that I don't want to even reach the destination and also being away from society gives you a certain view of the society, so that was the intention of the film.

In general, when you travel, you get into a different reality and are able to more accurately reflect on your ordinary life. Hiking does that for me.

So I've been pushed farther and farther out into the mountains, but at the same time realizing that that experience is really nice and I'm glad I'm getting pushed out there farther.

America is a huge country, filled with great tracts of open land. If you're not careful, you can get lost in it - lost emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

I took four years off after 'In the Cut' because I wanted to see who I'd be without work. I even tried being a hermit in the wilderness in New Zealand. I stayed in a warden's hut two-and-a-half hours off the Routeburn Track through the fjords on the South Island. It was early winter, so there was no electricity or running water.

Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.

I have gone to the forest.

I am a control freak, but not when I travel. For some reason when I travel, I am able to surrender more than in my real life. I am able to let go. I think it's why I like it so much.

I like being near the top of a mountain. One can't get lost here.

By reading Huckleberry Finn I felt I was able to justify my act of going into the mountain forest at night and sleeping among the trees with a sense of security which I could never find indoors.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.

I like out, I like the outside world.

I always wanted to live alone for a month in a lakeside cabin. In my fantasy, I enter a state of perfect peace and grow my own kale and stuff, but in real life, I think I might be very bored after four days.

Rebellion is what you make of it. When you've been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.