On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.

I was so thankful that my parents trusted me enough and had enough faith in my abilities to let me follow my passion and try to do something great, even if I might fail.

Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.

The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.

On June 10, the worst storm in the series swept across the middle of the Indian Ocean and Wild Eyes was directly in its path.

I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.

Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.

The open ocean often takes you past your physical limits and when it does, sailing becomes a mental game.

Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.

But none of that kept me from picturing what a tsunami might look like if it did rise up and roar toward my little boat like some watery blue version of the Great Wall of China.

I didn't know there were this many math guys, " Hale said as they stepped onto the crowded concourse.Kat cleared her throat. "And women, " he added. "Math women.

Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what's already there.

The Saints come, as human as a mouth, with a bag of God in their backs, like a hunchback, they come, they come marching in.

Does the devil know he is a devil?

No saint, no pope, no general, no sultan, has ever had the power that a filmmaker has; the power to talk to hundreds of millions of people for two hours in the dark.

The bad boy: always more fun.

Animals can't really voice their opinion. We feel as though we can be on of the spokespeople on their behalf.

Chaos, when left alone, tends to multiply.

I don't know the man I admire more than [Charles Evans] Hughes. If ever I have the chance I shall offer him the Chief Justiceship.

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.