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"I moved to the B classes with the black kids. I decided I'd rather be held back with people I liked than move ahead with people I didn't know." While it might not have exactly been his purpose in life, Trevor made the conscious decision to sacrifice some of his academic potential to be able to stay with the people that he felt closer to. Although taking the B classes may have negatively impacted the opportunities he was given later in life, he was able to experience what was likely a much more enjoyable social life during his educational years than he would have if he had stayed in the A classes.

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"Remains the censure of this hellish villain. The time, the place, the torture, O, enforce it." At the start of the play, Iago had a pretty good life. He had a wife who loved him, a prestigious job, and the people around him respected and trusted him. However, by the end of the play, his desire to ruin Othello's life leads to the loss of his wife, his position, and all of the trust and respect of his peers. His obsession with ruining Othello's life also ruined his own, and his purpose left him with nothing by the time he reached the end of his journey.

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"After his attempt to depart the wilderness was stymied by the Teklanika's high flow, McCandless arrived back at the bus on July 8. It's impossible to know what was going through his mind at that point, for his journal betrays nothing. Quite possibly he was unconcerned about his escape routes having been cut off; indeed, at the time there was little reason for him to worry: It was the height of summer, the country was a fecund riot of plant and animal life, and his food supply was adequate. He probably surmised that if he bided his time until August, the Teklanika would subside enough to be crossed." Chris' journey began as an escape from the society that he disapproved of, but the more time he spent in the wilderness, the more his purpose changed to be more survival-oriented. His confidence in his survival abilities grew every day that he continued to live in the wilderness, and his confidence combined with his stubborn commitment to following his purpose led him to believe that he would be able to survive in the Alaskan wilderness long enough for the river to slow and allow him to pass, but this belief ultimately led to his death.

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"'And what went wrong when other alchemists tried to make gold and were unable to do so?' 'They were looking only for gold...they were seeking the treasure of their Personal Legend without wanting actually to live out the Personal Legend.'" In this quote, the alchemist is trying to teach Santiago that those that try to reach the rewards of their journey without actually experiencing that journey. The failed alchemists' purposes in life were both the path to discovery and the discovery itself, not just the reward of the discovery. By trying to skip the journey and just receive the reward, they weren't following their intended purpose, and so failed to achieve their reward.

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"I'd been dating a girl for over a month - the girl I very much believed was my first girlfriend - without ever having had a single conversation with her. Now the whole night came rushing back and I saw it from her point of view. She probably hadn't wanted to go to the dance with me in the first place; she probably owed Tom a favor, and Tom could talk anyone into anything. Then I'd left her waiting for me for an hour and she was not happy. Then she got into the car and it was the first time we had ever been alone, and she realized I couldn't even hold a conversation with her. I'd driven her around and gotten lost in the dark. She was probably terrified." The story of the dance demonstrates how Trevor was so preoccupied with the thought of taking a beautiful girl to a dance as his date that he didn't even realize they didn't share any languages, and so it took him quite some time to realize how uncomfortable and scared she probably was.

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"Cassio hath here been set on in the dark by Roderigo and fellows that are scaped. He’s almost slain, and Roderigo dead." Iago's plot to ruin the life of Othello affects everyone around him. Throughout the play, he causes the deaths of Montano, Roderigo, Emilia, and Desdemona, he nearly ruins the life of Cassio, and he causes Othello to kill himself. The purpose that he dedicates himself to causes pain, anguish, and death all around him.

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"He used to sit right there at the end of the bar and tell us these amazing stories of his travels. He could talk for hours. A lot of folks here in town got pretty attached to old Alex. Kind of a strange deal what happened to him." Chris was very driven and animated by his purpose, and this drive endeared him to the people around him. He was very friendly and interesting, and it made the people around him like him.

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"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too." This quote demonstrates the positive effects that following your purpose has on the world around you. As you work to better yourself, you improve the world around you as well as yourself.

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"My mother took me places black people never went. She refused to be bound by ridiculous ideas of what black people couldn't or shouldn't do."..."When I look back I realize she raised me like a white kid - not white culturally, but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster, that I should speak up for myself, that my ideas and thoughts and decisions mattered." Trevor Noah's mother wanted to make sure that her child wouldn't be held back by the racial norms of the society they lived in, and so she made it her purpose to raise her son in such a way that he would not feel like the world was against him, and that he knew that he could be successful in whatever he put his mind to.

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"The world saw me as colored, but I didn't spend my life looking at myself. I saw myself as the people around me, and the people around me were black. My cousins are black, my mom is black, my gran is black. I grew up black." Although he was seen as "mixed", everyone around Trevor as he was growing up was black, and so he was raised as black. His early life experiences shaped how he would define his own ethnic heritage, and since his family growing up was all black, he chose to identify as such.

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"My mother calls it 'The black tax." Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero." Trevor mentions what his mother called "the black tax", where black people are held back by the history of their ancestors instead of being able to find success in their lives. In this sense, the "black tax" forces black people to allow their ancestors to tell their stories, because they have to make up for what happened to their ancestors instead of bettering their own lives.

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"The names Xhosa families give their children always have a meaning, and that meaning has a way of becoming self-fulfilling. You have my cousin, Mlungisi. 'The Fixer.' That's who he is. Whenever I got into trouble he was the one trying to help me fix it. He was always the good kid, doing chores, helping around the house." The meanings behind traditional Xhosa names are described as often being self-fulfilling, where many childrens' names often become descriptions of their personality. In this way, these children allow their parents to tell their stories, because the expectations placed on them by their names lead them to develop a personality similar to their name.

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"That was the weird and kind of amazing thing about my mom. If she agreed with me that a rule was stupid, she wouldn't punish me for breaking it. Both she and the psychologists agreed that the school was the one with the problem, not me. Catholic school is not the place to be creative and independent." Trevor Noah's mother was a very important influence on his life, and her unusual approach to his rebellion against illogical rules likely shaped his personality and creativity.

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"Eventually I felt so invisible I almost wanted to take credit. I wanted to jump up and point at the TV and say, 'Are you people blind?! That's me! Can't you see that that's me?!' But of course I didn't. And they couldn't. These people had been so messed up by their own construct of race they could not see that the white person they were looking for was sitting right in front of them." The anecdote about the security footages' contrast making everyone who saw it think that the person in the video couldn't possibly be Trevor is a good representation of much of Trevor's life, because all the people around him were constantly being blinded by their own preconceived notions of race that they were caught off-guard by Trevor, who didn't fit into those ideas of race.

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"I think thou dost; and for I know thou ’rt full of love and honesty and weigh’st thy words before thou giv’st them
breath, therefore these stops of thine fright me the more." Othello is shown to be a very honest and trustworthy man, which was likely one of the reasons he was appointed to such a high ranking military position. However, this same honesty seems to make him expect the same out of others, and so he never suspects that Iago is deceiving him throughout the play. Othello's trustworthy nature likely caused both his greatest successes and failures in his life.

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"But partly led to diet my revenge for that I do suspect the lusty Moor hath leaped into my seat—the thought whereof doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards, and nothing can or shall content my soul till I am evened with him, wife for wife" Iago believes, without proof, that Othello had an affair with Emilia, Iago's wife. While he gives other reasons throughout the story, this is probably the most likely motivation to have put him on his path, considering he describes this reason during a soliloquy, so he is less likely to have been lying. This belief, among others, fuels Iago's desire to ruin Othello's life and marriage, dedicating his life's purpose to destroying Othello simply due to spite and a rumor that seems to be unlikely to be true.

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"And ’tis great pity that the noble Moor should hazard such a place as his own second with one of an engraffed infirmity." In this scene, Iago had made Montano think that Cassio was a dangerous alcoholic. Cassio had told Iago that he was not good at controlling himself while drunk, and so he tries to stay away from alcohol. Iago didn't lie to Montano, but he did mislead him. Cassio was not around to stop Iago from twisting what he had actually said, and even if he was, Iago wasn't actually lying, so Cassio might have had a hard time clarifying the truth of the situation.

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"I speak not yet of proof. Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio; Wear your eyes thus, not jealous nor secure." Iago manipulates Othello by twisting Desdemona's words and actions against her to make it seem like she might be dishonest, and possibly cheating on Othello. This is completely untrue, and if Desdemona had been present to disprove what Iago was saying, Othello wouldn't have been turned against her. However, since Desdemona was unaware of the things Iago was saying about her, she had no way to prevent him from "telling her story" and driving her husband to madness.

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"'Do it not with poison. Strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated.' 'Good, good. The justice of it pleases. Very good." Iago's manipulations drive Othello to kill his wife, even though she had done nothing wrong. If Iago had not interfered, they likely would have had a happy life together, but Iago's decisions radically altered the direction of Othello's story.

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"When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well; of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme." In his last speech before killing himself, Othello told his own story to the people around him, to ensure that when they pass along his story to others, they tell it how he wanted them to. He ensured that he would be remembered as he was: a man who loved his wife dearly, and was not quick to jealousy, but was driven to an extreme by a manipulative force. He wanted to make sure that his story would not be downplayed or exaggerated, but told as it was.

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"The frost feathers holding me up, it became apparent, were maybe five inches thick and had the structural integrity of stale corn bread. Below was thirty-seven hundred feet of air, and I was balanced on a house of cards. The sour taste of panic rose in my throat." Krakauer is very detailed in describing his thoughts and feelings in the moment of his story, and his explanation helps the reader better understand his emotions at the time throughout his anecdote.

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"Astonishingly, the eighty-one-year-old man took the brash twenty-four-year old vagabond's advice to heart. Franz placed his furniture and most of his other possessions in a storage locker, bought a CMC Duravan, and outfitted it with bunks and camping gear. Then he moved out of his apartment and set up camp on the bajada." An old man given the pseudonym Ronald Franz by the author decides to adopt a more nomadic lifestyle after a final message from Chris McCandless, whom he had become very close to. Whether they know it or not, everyone's lives are affected by the people they are close to, even if it usually isn't to the same extent as the total lifestyle shift that Franz undertook after Chris convinced him to leave his city and explore the world. Our stories can be altered by those close to us in many ways, and whether they directly change your life or they just affect how you make decisions, they are crucial to the paths our stories take.

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"It was easy to imagine Chris McCandless making the same mistake as the Indian woman and becoming similarly incapacitated. From all the available evidence, there seemed to be little doubt that McCandless—rash and incautious by nature—had committed a careless blunder, confusing one plant for another, and died as a consequence." The author of Into the Wild makes many assumptions and uses his imagination to come up with possibilities of what kinds of things happened to Chris that he didn't make note of in his journal. Chris is completely unable to disprove these assumptions and guesses, because his death has prevented him from ever affecting how others tell his story.

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"He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God." Chris McCandless cannot prevent any of the journalists and authors writing about him from adding their own opinions to his story, because he is no longer alive to react to the retellings of his story. His death means he no longer has any control over his own story.

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"Instead of feeling distraught over this turn of events, moreover, McCandless was exhilarated: he saw the flash flood as an opportunity to shed unnecessary baggage. He concealed the car as best he could beneath a brown tarp, stripped it of its Virginia plates, and hid them. He buried his Winchester deer-hunting rifle and a few other possessions that he might one day want to recover. Then, in a gesture that would have done both Thoreau and Tolstoy proud, he arranged all his paper currency in a pile on the sand - a pathetic little stack of ones and fives and twenties - and put a match to it." Throughout his journey, Chris McCandless runs into many obstacles and challenges making survival more difficult. However, instead of being discouraged by the challenges he faced, he saw them as opportunities to commit further towards following his dream and conquering the wilderness. For the majority of the story, he didn't appear to ever get discouraged by unexpected problems, and instead seemed to enjoy being given opportunities to get closer to his ideal lifestyle.

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"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty." Chris found his life purpose in travelling the country and finding the beauty in nature everywhere around him. His advice to Ronald Franz demonstrated this fact, as he described how his travels have opened his eyes to unique experiences everywhere he went, as he found beauty all around him.

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"The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change. I'm used to the way I am." The crystal merchant understands his own mindset regarding his business, and he understands that he is satisfied with the level of success that his business receives. He tells the boy how he feels about the opportunities the boy has shown him, and he helps the boy understand the crystal merchant's story.

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"The boy fell to his knees and wept. He thanked God for making him believe in his Personal Legend, and for leading him to meet a king, a merchant, an Englishman, and an alchemist. And above all for his having met a woman of the desert who had told him that love would never keep a man from his Personal Legend" Everyone that Santiago met along his journey helped him follow his personal legend in some way. Most gave him some piece of advice or helped him learn some crucial knowledge, but even people who at first seemed to hinder him were helpful, like the thief who stole his money. Although it was discouraging, it forced him to spend time in the port city and learn Arabic and deepen his understanding of the language of the world.

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"I don't want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I'm going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don't want to do so." The crystal merchant's life story had been fairly mediocre and unchanging, but when he met Santiago, he suddenly learned that, with ambition and a willingness to change, he could be much more successful with his business than he had previously thought. Santiago's actions and advice changed the merchant's life, and, in a way, Santiago told the crystal merchant's story, and changed it. If the crystal merchant hadn't met Santiago, he would have continued to tell his own story in his own way, without ever changing anything or making any improvements. By allowing Santiago to improve his business, he allowed him to alter his story.

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"It's good I refrained from saying anything to the baker in Tarifa, thought the boy to himself." Santiago had the opportunity to change a baker's life, by trying to get him to pursue his dream of travel and spending a month in Africa. However, he chooses not to, and when talking to the crystal merchant, decides he made the right choice, because he believes the baker might have been unhappy with the change to his story, like the crystal merchant. All of this decision making was completely unknown to the baker. Santiago's choices affected the story of the baker, allowing him to tell the baker's story, and because he didn't know about it, the baker couldn't prevent Santiago from telling his story.

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"I can always go back to being a shepherd, the boy thought. i learned how to care for sheep, and I haven't forgotten how that's done. But maybe I'll never have another chance to get to the Pyramids in Egypt." The boy's life experiences have shown him what he is capable of achieving, and he knows that if he fails in finding his treasure, he can always return to the life of a shepherd. His experience with shepherding allows him to take a risk and try to pursue his treasure, because he knows that he can still be happy and successful even if he fails.

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"I had a dream, and I met with a king. I sold crystal and I crossed the desert. And, because the tribes declared war, I went to the well, seeking the alchemist. So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you." As Santiago followed his purpose, he met his future wife, and immediately fell in love. If he hadn't decided to follow his purpose, he wouldn't have found Fatima, or experienced any of the other things that happened to him on his journey. By following his purpose, he experienced so much more of what life has to offer.