Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, has the most individual passages and flickers of genius of any book I know. Time after time in my long life I’ve reached back to Walden to succinctly express something intangible. Just a few that live in my head:

• I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
• I am no more lonely than . . . the first spider in a new house.
• Making the earth say beans instead of grass—this was my daily work.
• I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

And the passage that truly shaped my life, encouraging me to seek adventure in very literal ways:

> As I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the rain, bending my steps again to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel, wading in retired meadows, in sloughs and bog–holes, in forlorn and savage places, appeared for an instant trivial to me who had been sent to school and college; but as I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius seemed to say—Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day—farther and wider—and rest thee by many brooks and hearth–sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee 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. Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.