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"What did we do all the time on this uneventful passage? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except live in communion with our boat, which was sailing happily towards the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, with plenty of wind, wind, wind. One must have sailed far away from any land to know how full and rewarding a day at sea can be without anything happening. It is so different from coastal sailing where one is always a little apprehensive, tense, prepared for anything. Out there, in the open sea, we were prepared simply to live."

"There was no hurry now, Joshua was to spend the winter in Casablanca, where the local yacht club had provided us with a safe mooring in extremely pleasant and gay company. The club members are really keen sailors who go out every weekend even if a howling gale whistles through the rigging, and many of them perform quite admirable feats of seamanship in leaving their moorings under sail alone, without a hitch and as though it were the most natural thing in the world. A real pleasure to watch."

"Decision is the hardest part — execution is easy." Robin's consistent philosophy across every venture, from the Golden Globe to the Clipper Race, is that once the decision is made, the obstacles largely dissolve. He doesn't agonize; he acts. "The thinking about it is the hard part. It's much easier to make the decision and get on with it."

"You'll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you, and say to yourself, 'What they can do, I can do.'"

"The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have."

"It must be remembered that on long offshore passages a well-built and well-equipped boat will stand up to much more rough weather than will the crew."

"The 3 most important things are attitude, attitude, and attitude. Because if the attitude is right, you survive and you learn everything you don't need to learn."

"The tough part is making departures, shedding the shackles of society's expectations, kicking the addiction of electronic connections, subverting the guilt of our own obligations, and pushing off the dock physically and metaphorically."

"You've got it in you, alright, everyone's got it in them, it isn't a special dispensation from a selective Providence. It is just a question of whether you have the guts to apply it. It struck me that I must be pretty dumb, for most people come by it naturally, but I had to sail across thousands of miles of ocean to find out that courage is the key to living."

"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made, For somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid; A soul that sings with the ship along through plunging hills of blue, And fills her canvas cups of white with winds that drive her through."

"To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… 'cruising' it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"

"The gratification that I get from coaching and teaching these guys and then finishing a Bermuda race is just knowing that I facilitated getting these guys from sort of point A to point Z... look at what these guys have accomplished, and I've helped facilitate that."

"You can just look at the globe and just see you can cross oceans from where you are now, and that's like a mind-blowing thought for me."

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts."

"If you want to sail around the world to say that you've done it, well, don't do it because you have the wrong attitude. If you really, really want to do something because you love the ocean, you want to see the world as it is still now before it is too late, then do it."

"I knew that weather can turn concrete plans into vague abstractions, but that's no reason to forgo the pleasure of laying them."

"The single most important thing you can do, by far and bar none, to become a safe and happy offshore cruiser is to go to sea as crew with an experienced skipper on a good boat. No amount of inshore sailing or reading replaces this vital step on the road to becoming a competent offshore sailor."

"The more you know, the less you need."

"Sharing the wisdom of the high seas, with those wise enough to seek it out."

"A lot of risk comes from trying to speed things up. A lack of patience changes the outcome."