He has the obligation to society that any human being has. I don't think a satirist has any greater obligation to society than a bricklayer or anybody else.

Silverstein composed original music for several films and displayed a musical versatility in these projects playing guitar piano saxophone and trombone. He told Jean Mercier of PubliShel Silversteinrs Weekly: "When I was a kid—12 to 14 around there—I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls but I couldn't play ball. Employing a sketchbook format with typewriter-styled captions he documented his own experiences at such locations as a New Jersey nudist colony the Chicago White Sox training camp San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district Fire Island Mexico London Paris Spain and Africa.

Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein (September 25 1930 – May 8/9 1999) was an American poet singer-songwriter cartoonist screenwriter and author of children's books. He styled himself as Uncle Shelby in his children's books. Translated into more than 30 languages his books have sold over 20 million copies.