Those of us who stayed were younger, more tractable. Less sure of ourselves socially and intellectually, we gave ourselves to the sport with little idea of what we could give or receive.

I climbed on the rowing ergometer, and started to pull - losing myself in the rhythm of sweat and pain.

That morning each of us found a breaking point. Not only a physical barrier, but a point where determination, stamina and duty clashed and were overcome not so much by pain but by absurdity.

Once one is beyond a certain level of commitment to the sport, life begins to seem an allegory of rowing rather than rowing an allegory of life.

Being in shape was not my goal. My body was a tool to test the capabilities of my will.

The ergometer simulates the physical demands of rowing, packaging the pains with none of the amenities that make it worthwhile.

Am I a storm-waster? For it is within the fury of the very storms within which I cower that I find resources for my growth that are entirely absent on calmer days.

You know the most common phrase in the movies is 'let's get out of here?

Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.

What a nation needs more than anything else is not a Christian ruler in the palace but a Christian prophet within earshot.

I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.

Ask for peace first, and you will clearly see your next step.

I'm not very geeky. I'm quite homespun. I would say I'm more modern rustic than gadget-orientated. I like woollen things and log fires and whiskey

I know there is no danger that I will ever forget that people construct their own reality, that human beings are not led to the same version of events and of the world by the same physical evidence.

I say again that I am an atheist. I do not believe in God.

Mirth is God's medicine; everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety-all the rust of life- ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth.