When I first read Walden, it made a huge impression on me - such purity - such solitude. Then I realized he wrote to show his friends, to publish, to put himself above and apart. Hmmm...

Thoreau said "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I sez - "I came out of the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to be with people and to see if I could not learn what they had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not been human."