“Walden is the only book I own, although
there are some others unclaimed on my shelves.
Every man, I think, reads one book in his life,
and this one is mine. It is not the best book I ever
encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest,
and I keep it about me in much the same way one
carries a handkerchief — for relief in moments of
defluxion or despair.”

– E.B. White,
author of Charlotte's Web,
in a letter to James Thurber, May 23, 1953