“One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.”

The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!

I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn’t likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks.

I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.

One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.

In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.

If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.

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

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

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

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

It was amazing to see all the support that he got from around the world and to see how everyone worked together to help make his dream reality. Watching him do this really made me believe that I could too.

Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.

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

The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.

Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.

All the ingenuity, all the high-tech gear, all the jury-rigging sometimes the sea would rip it all away until there was only you, the Creator, and His mercy.

If you need one more reason, i love you.

Of new acquaintances one can never be sure because one likes them one day that it will be so the next. Of old friends one is sure that it will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.

Our true buddha-nature has no shape. And the dust of affliction has no form.

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.

The secret to modeling is not being perfect. What one needs is a face that people can identify in a second. You have to be given what’s needed by nature, and what’s needed is to bring something new.

Sadie,” he said forlornly, “when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children’s.

You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.