Sailors

"The single commandment of anchoring is: Thou shall create scope."

"Only in a small sailboat at sea are we reminded of our natural place in the universe. The sea forces upon us a natural scale. The sea limits one day’s passage to a hundred miles, not too different from the scale used by the ancient Hebrews to measure the throne of God. Small boat sailors parse the structures of the sea in days and weeks and months, not flashing minutes as the land bound do. They have recaptured nature’s pendulum."

"On land, companionship is thrust upon us, forcing us to be social long after we have had our fill of society. It is little wonder that we become cynics and come to hate our neighbors. And that is too bad, for beyond the companionship of our neighbors, and for some lucky few, the companionship of their God, we are quite alone in the universe. Only by seeking separation from the human herd can you become lovingly close to it. Just one more gift of paradox of which the sea is blessedly rich."

"Cruising sailors make lists like stagnant water makes mosquitoes."

"It is a peculiar role in many respects, when you see the play Dracula seems to be constantly on the stage. A casual glance would indicate that he speaks as many lines as Hamlet. Yet, as a matter of fact, the number of 'sides' is small. The professor really has a great many more. But, if Count Dracula is not particularly chatty, he presents other difficulties. I find that it requires time and meditation to catch the mood of the character; each performance must be approached with some care. The result is that one doesn’t weary of the part."

"I’ve lived here for 20 years and I have been a citizen for 10 years. I hope I am a good one. I know I don’t take it for granted. I feel I am an awfully lucky person to be an American and I think that every naturalized American and every person born in this land should kneel on his knees every morning and utter a prayer for being an American."

"We do, to what extent of freedom we have earned or are allowed by others and ourselves, what we most want to do. We say - speak, paint, carve, write, express ourselves...as we damn please. And in both the doing of things and the talking about them - which together seem to me to sum up life - we so crave freedom or liberty or whatever one may choose to call it as to justify our Declaration's romantically terming it an unalienable right of Man, bestowed on Man by his Creator."

"Art must unquestionably have a social value; that is, as a potential means of communication it must be addressed, and in comprehensible terms, to the understanding of mankind."

"While reasonable men will ungrudgingly submit to such curtailment of their liberties as will promote at least the greater liberty of all, to the exact degree to which such curtailment may become unreasonable will the enforcement of it have to rest on force. Force against reason: reason, because it has the power of enlisting force to fight for it, will win. From the recognition of that truth has come democracy."

"After all, what's the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end all we're willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true."

"Well be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby Be-bop-a-lula, I don't mean maybe Be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby Be-bop-a-lula, I don't mean maybe Be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby love My baby love, my baby love."

"I hope my fans remember my name is Gene Vincent and not Gene Autry."

"No, not really. I’m a singer. Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man. When I put out a record called "Be-Bop-A-Lula", my only thought was to just make a living singing. But all of a sudden, I was getting $1500 a night. And you take a 19-year old boy and put him in those circumstances … I had a Cadillac and all. It was a bad scene. It shouldn’t have happened on that first record."

"It’s like I say. We used to all sit around … me and Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins and we’d talk about things. If one of us had a hit, we’d say: "That’s fabulous. It’s a damn good song." But now, the people that I meet are so damn big headed … it’s not music any more, it’s business. But now … I’ve met Jim Morrison of the Doors … a fantastic person. Really a nice guy, and he takes me back to the people I knew in the old days. Listen, a star is not a star. We never considered ourselves that. I’m always pushing, man, to get something better. And that’s the same with Jim and fellas like John Sebastian."

"I think maybe I was born to be a songwriter. It's quite a comfort. I wrote most of my songs to stay alive, the rest to get back in the house."

"I churched it and churched it. I got born again, slowly. I've slid back several times, but it seemed like it don't matter. God will give you seven times 70 a chance. I've pushed it to the limit a time or two."

"I'm a serious guy, and hungry, too."

"Most of the things I write are things that are personal to me. I realized that that's the only way to really be honest. If you go writing about someone else you're just guessing at it."

"I look to bop till I drop. That's what I want to do. I want to go out on the road [...]I love to travel and I couldn't afford to do it if it wasn't for this."

"The main thing is to make up your mind. If you're going to do it, do it, and if you're just going to halfway do it don't even try. This is a very demanding thing. I stay simple, I didn't get a whole lot of education, so most of it's just coming from what I gathered up. If you stay honest we've all got in common that we're all different. If you stay real deadly honest and write about some very interesting things then you'll be a good one. A lot of people just don't like to get honest but it's the cheapest psychiatrist there is. I think that's the way to look at it."

"Hopefully things will work out where we become friends enough so that he gives me back my bullet."

"I've been in trouble most of my life. No stealing or anything like that, just fights. It's all fights."

"Now that man can fly through the air like a bird ... and swim in the sea like a fish, wouldn't it be wonderful if he could just walk the earth like a man?"

"Of course, if there's one thing more annoying to a performer than being recognized on the street, it's not being recognized."

"Something rare these days—a wit."

"I don't have a name - my family doesn't have a name. The law that Mr. Papandreou passed basically says that he considers that I am not Greek and that my family was Greek only so long as we were exercising the responsibilities of sovereign, and I had to go out and acquire a name. The problem is that my family originates from Denmark, and the Danish royal family haven't got a surname."

"Sadly, he's mean as well as stupid, and takes advantage of our generosity."

"If the Greek people decide that they want a republic, they are entitled to have that and should be left in peace to enjoy it."

"I consider myself King of the Hellenes and sole expression of legality in my country until the Greek people freely decide otherwise. I fully expected that the [military] regime would depose me eventually. They are frightened of the Crown because it is a unifying force among the people."

"I've always been a republican, naturally, and I certainly can't say I sympathise with Constantine... I'm not interested in stating whether or not I like him. What interests me is whether or not he's useful in the fight against the junta."

""The surrender and succeeding jubilation was rightly American but, as Admiral Fraser appreciated, Britain and the Commonwealth had now been at war for six long years less a day. If the forenoon had been American, then the evening would be British. The last sunset ceremony had been carried out on the evening of September 2,1939. Since then the White Ensign had flown in every ship by day and night. Admiral Fraser ordered the resumption of sunset routine as from September 2, 1945 and invited all the senior officers of British ships in Tokyo, and a token number of sailors from each, to witness the ceremony in his flagship. He was dissuaded from firing a sunset gun in case some trigger-happy American or Japanese thought the war had re-started."

"It was dark. Something had fallen on top of the cabin light, turning the cabin into a black tunnel. I couldn’t hear anything at all. The roll didn’t stop. It continued to port, and for just a few seconds I was sitting on the ceiling in the dark."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"The critics barged in to harp on every decision we made. . .Sadly, I began to doubt myself. Maybe I was too young. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough sailor."

"After the week of stormy weather, she set sail under sunny skies, on a glassy sea with a big swell running."

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

"It seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don’t want to put them in a position to fail."

"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."

"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 saw the loose tiller jolt hard to the side as the boat began to spin."

"I’m one-hundred-fifty miles off Cape Horn, both autopilots are broken, and my boat is drifting toward one of the nastiest chunks of ocean on the face of the earth."

"The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below. If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces."

"When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment."

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

"If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better."

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