Sailors

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

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

"But the more times she missed, the faster she’d be traveling when she finally slammed into the mast. And it wasn’t if she hit the mast; it was when. At that point, Abby would be either severely injured or dead."

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

"Even without looking I knew: there was no way I still had a mast. And without a mast, the trip was over."

"Fifty feet of mast lay in the heaving water, downed lines and shrouds holding it there."

"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."

"The seriousness of my situation started to sink in, and again I fought panic. I pushed it down, but it was harder this time, like my insides were an open can of shaken soda and I was trying to keep it from bubbling up out of the top."

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

"It was like a horrible movie clip, only worse, because I could feel it—not just see it."

"Marianne tried to stay hopeful. But slowly her imagination bulldozed her optimism aside and pushed her mind into a dark place. There, she saw Abby tethered to the boat in her bright red foul-weather gear, being dragged along dead in the sea."

"The only thing I knew to do was to pray. “Lord, if I’m going to be rescued,” I said out loud, “please let me know.”"

"Against reason, I thought that the next swell would be it: another rogue wave would roll me again . . .At that moment, a noise from above caught my attention. And I looked up just in time to see a gigantic white airplane fly by."

"When I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear."

"The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability."

"Just like that, a single phone call erased one possible, horrendous future—and replaced it with the bright certainty that God had answered the prayers of thousands and that their beloved Abby was coming home."

"Unable to make radio contact with this second plane I felt my chances were fading fast. Dropping the radio mic, I sprinted up to the deck . . . and saw a huge ship bearing down on me!"

"Just as I was about to grab the rope ladder, a huge swell lifted the dinghy nearly to La Reunion’s deck level, and at least a dozen smiling French fishermen pulled me aboard."

"I will never forget the feeling of walking into my home, a place that while drifting helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean I wondered if I would ever see again."

"I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God."

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

"You'll find my power comes from within.... and is a force to be reckoned with."

"Just came from the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy. With all the hype I expected to be a bit disappointed. It just couldn't be as good as everyone was predicting. And they were wrong. It's even better than everyone said. It just might be Marvel's best movie yet."

"I’m a firm believer that in-depth subjects can be better handled in a fantasy setting. … Let’s face it, traveling to some far off land is a terrific way to break the mold, to do something different. Isn’t that why we go on vacations?"

"When I finished with Captain Marvel I had turned him from a warrior into a mystic. Adam Warlock was a mystical messiah. Where to go from there? Decided to reverse course and turn him into a suicidal paranoid/schizophrenic, which was the way I was feeling at the time. I’ve always used my work to examine what is currently going on in my own life. It’s cheaper than going to a shrink. The Death of Captain Marvel was a great way of working through my own father’s death."

"I’m still proudest of The Death of Captain Marvel followed closely by various Dreadstar stories, Warlock, Kid Kosmos Kidnapped, The Thanos Quest and a series next-to-nobody ever read, called Wyrd, the Mystic Warrior..."

"As big as an elephant is, a whale is still larger. Everything's relative. Even gods have their spot on the food chain."

"I've made more money in novels than I did in my entire career in comics. The few years I did novels, they paid off so well, I don't have to be a slave to doing comics. But I'd rather do comics than novels. If I wanted to do it just for the money, I'd run off and do another novel. I just don't have the juice for it. I'm really not interested in it. It's a love for what this medium is."

"Adam Warlock, a being who wished nothing more than to spend the rest of his days within the peaceful environment of the Soul Gem. He now possesses the Infinite Power and the responsibility that goes with it. While I, whose entire life was dedicated to the pursuit of power, now find myself scraping out a living from the soil. Irony worthy of the drama. Yet strangely enough though, I envy not Adam Warlock. Somehow I feel, that in the long run, Thanos of Titan came out ahead in this particular deal."

"We tried to do this the easy way — and we failed. Now begins the conflict I strove to avoid. It may well prove to be a battle the Universe cannot survive! Eternity, it is now your turn."

"Naked power is seldom the answer to any problem. Surely you must know that even this group's combined might is nothing compared to the force Thanos wields. Only a richly complex and skillfully executed strategy will insure your survival. Time is short and I have such a plan."

"There are forces at work you do not perceive. I weave a delicate strategy which rash actions could rend. Patience, please."

"The Universe will now be set right. Made over to fit my unique view of what should be. Let Nihilism reign supreme!"

"Who would have thought that becoming God would be such a hollow victory."

"My name is Thanos, and my name means Death."

"Obviously my best strategy is to wait, listen, and learn."

"I suppose more than anything else I'd like to be an old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or Picasso. They know that life is not just a popularity contest."

"My start, my childhood, was less than auspicious. But when I was young, we didn’t know we lacked anything, because we had nothing to compare it to — and there's a freedom in that. I had a very hard working mother and father, I think of them both a great deal. I got my break — big break — when I was five years old. And it's taken me more than seventy years to realize it. You see, at five, I learned to read. It's that simple, and it's that profound. I left school at thirteen, I didn’t have a formal education, and I believe I would not be standing here tonight, without the books, the plays — the scripts. It's been a long journey from Fountainbridge to this evening — with you all. Though my feet are tired, my heart is not."

"There are women who take it to the wire. That's what they are looking for, the ultimate confrontation. They want a smack."

"An open-handed slap is justified – if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning. If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I'd do it."

"When I spoke about Bond with Fleming, he said that when the character was conceived, Bond was a very simple, straightforward, blunt instrument of the police force, a functionary who would carry out his job rather doggedly. But he also had a lot of idiosyncrasies that were considered snobbish — such as a taste for special wines, et cetera. But if you take Bond in the situations that he is constantly involved with, you see that it is a very hard, high, unusual league that he plays in. Therefore he is quite right in having all his senses satisfied — be it Warmth, wine, food or clothes — because the job, and he with it, may terminate at any minute. But the virtues that Amis mentions — loyalty, honesty — are there, too."

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."

"The imaginative artist willy-nilly influences his time. If he understands his responsibility and acts on it—taking the art seriously always, himself never quite—he can make a contribution equal to, if different from, that of the scientist, the politician, and the jurist. The anarchic artist so much in vogue now—asserting with vehemence and violence that he writes only for himself, grubbing in the worst seams of life—can do damage. But he can also be so useful in breaking up obsolete molds, exposing shams, and crying out the truth, that the broadest freedom of art seems to me necessary to a country worth living in."

"Deep in the heart of both critical Christian and alienated Jew, there is … a feeling, not even a feeling, a shadow of a notion, nothing more substantial than the pointless but compelling impulse to knock on wood when one talks of the health of children—something that says there is more to Jews than meets the eye."

"There is a mystery about the Jews … and within this mystery lies the reason for the folk pride of the house of Abraham. This pride exists despite the disabilities that come from many centuries of ostracism."

"This is an excellent martini—sort of tastes like it isn’t there at all, just a cold cloud."

"We are in the black theater of nonexistence. In an eye blink the curtain is up, the stage ablaze, for the vast drama of ourselves."

"You can know almost anything about G-d, provided you put the right questions to Him. You have to learn how to put the questions, and they have to be accurate and airtight. [...] [M]y father, for instance, doesn't know that two atoms of hydrogen bind with one atom of oxygen to form a water molecule. Yet it's G-d's truth, and an important one. You don't know it [...] you believe it because you read it somewhere, or a teacher told you. I know it. I've put the question, and He answered, straight out. G-d will answer a high school boy. He asks only that you use common sense, pay very close attention to Him, not be sloppy, and count and measure correctly. G-d ignores sloppy questions. Sloppiness is the opposite of G-dliness. G-d is exact. He is marvelously, purely exact. Theology is all slop. Moses gave the best answers you could get, three thousand years ago, and he was no theologian."

"I regard the writing of humor as a supreme artistic challenge."

"I felt there’s a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I’d be a jerk not to take advantage of it."