Oh, Life, I am yours. Whatever it is you want of me, I am ready to give.

How did the world ever manage without me before I was born?' he wondered. 'Didn't they feel something was missing?

When I was an adolescent, Tahiti was a paradise. I made up my mind to settle there someday. I was going to be a seaman like Melville, but the Great Depression put me to work as a cartoonist to support the family.

If I'd had it my way, I'd have been a professional athlete, a sailor, a beachcomber, or some other form of hobo, a painter, a gardener, a novelist, a banjo-player, a traveler, anything but a rich man.

What is it but a map of busy life,Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?

Largeness is a lifelong matter,” he wrote. “. . . You grow because you are not content not to. You are like a beaver that chews constantly because if it doesn’t, its teeth grow long and lock. You grow because you are a grower; you’re large because you can’t stand to be small.