“I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.”

“As to this half-baked pother about my always feeling inferior in the presence of college graduates, that fear is groundless too. I am not nonplussed in the presence of anybody, and I am seldom at a loss with anyone I am interested in.”

“I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

“As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon, I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty.... Even from your scant description, I know that I could not bear the routine and humdrum of the life that you are forced to lead. I don't think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax.”

“...while I am alive, I intend to live.”

“I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?”

“I am very curious about life. I only hope it stays curious about me.”