Living as Wild Child, I could no longer be Debby Parker comfortably — this name that I’d been given at birth that defined me before I’d had the chance to define myself.

The trees were friendly, they gave me rest and shadowed refuge. Slipping through them, I felt safe and competent. My whole body was occupied. I had little energy to think or worry.

Beneath hot sun, desert roses bloomed. Under cold moon, I still refused to.

Water was liquid silver, water was gold. It was clarity—a sacred thing. Drinking was no longer something to take for granted. I’d never needed to consider water before.

There was so little I wanted to carry. Packing my backpack took me all of four minutes

The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.

I’d believed I needed to be steady in myself before I could function with others—but surviving alone no longer felt like a good way either.

I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself.

I was promising myself strength.I had to write it, say it, make the effort and fake it before I actually believed I could do it.

I was the director of my life, it was already true, and I would soon lead myself to my dreamed-of destinations.It was the task of my one thousand miles of solitude.

I no longer needed to peel myself of my skin, or to hide. To Dash the colorless ephemeral things that existed just beneath my surface were as vivid as the beauty marks he traced on my cheek.

If little labour, little are our gains:Man's fortunes are according to his pains.

God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities.

Possessing talent is nothing more than the continuous pursuit of a life-long interest.

The search for happiness ... always ends in the ghastly sense of the bottomless nothingness into which you will inevitably fall if you strain any further.

You meet people, you part ways, sometimes you cross paths again. Mostly, you don't.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

A state of affairs which leads to daily vexation is not the right state.

They don't make red noses to fit black people. I have a wide nose like a Volkswagen and I have never had a red nose that fitted me.

Silence kills scandal.

Surfing soothes me, it's always been a kind of Zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I'm on a wave.