“My only real fear was that I would not be able to surf again because I was concerned that I would not physically be able to do it. I knew that if I wasn’t able to surf then my life would really change.”

I’m actually not star-struck… I like to give people their own space and admire them from a distance.

My strength came from my relationship with Christ and from the love and encouragement of my family and friends.

I wouldn’t change what happened to me because then I wouldn’t have this chance, in front of all of you, to embrace more people than I ever could have with two arms.

I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe He gave me the passion and determination to continue surfing. You fall off the horse, and you get back on. I had to go for it.

Life is full of what-ifs. You can’t let it hold you back. If you do, you’re not really living at all… just kind of going through the motions with no meaning

To lose your everyday life of surfing and being creative on waves, enjoying the ocean – that’s scary to me. It was essential to at least try surfing again and get out there and see how it went.

God will give us the strength to be able to handle things. I mean, you can try to do it on your own, and sometimes you can pull off some stuff, but in the long run, it’s much easier with Him by our side.

Compassion can drive us to do amazing things and give us perspective.

Like, with one arm I know I can surf, but competitive surfing can be really frustrating, and sometimes you don’t do as well as you want to. It can be discouraging at times. But whenever I do get frustrated, I just focus on God.

It’s hard for me to describe the joy I felt after I stood up and rode wave in for the first time after the attack. I was incredibly thankful and happy inside. The tiny bit of doubt that would sometimes tell me you’ll never surf again was gone in one wave.

It’s been amazing to touch people’s lives.

My favorite thing [about surfing] is being creative on waves; it’s like an art form. You can do whatever you want on that wave if you work hard at it and just have fun out there.

Your looks do not define who you are.

Losing an arm is kinda lame at one point, but at the same time, so much good has come out of it.

The author describes how impressed she was with the detailed storyboards that outlined her movie – “not just sketches, but real art”. She then describes a Hawaiian sunset as, “God painting His storyboard on the sky”.

You don’t need easy, you just need possible.

We go to the real places, we shoot on location. We get the real people. It’s a perfect marriage between fact and fiction.

I use music really as a form of raw expression; escape from the real world.

It’s what we live for, to be able to make great illusions.

I can play a lot of things, but I haven’t mastered any one.

And the very real danger is that if your book of rules becomes a book of cliches.

When you are dealing with real life, there is no way to control it.

I didn’t want to do that. But what I did want to do was have a real look at the adventure genre because I thought it was ripe for reinvention.

To try to teach ignoring technology is to ignore the progress that we have made over the last century.