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

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.

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.

Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.

I was able to take that first step to freedom.

You must be willing to give up what you are, to become what you want to be.

Those who think life is a competition become corrupt.

Romance is everything.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

Guns are the crutches of the impotent.

These newspaper reporters... ever since Sullivan versus New York Times... have got a license to lie.

To me, photography is not just a visual art, but something closer to poetry - or at least to some poetry, such as the haiku.

If Christianity were only a development, then Christ was not needed. If Christianity were only a scheme of morals, then the divine incarnation was a thing superfluous.

I definitely go on gut instinct but it has always had the back up of research and information.