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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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?"

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."

"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."

"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 rarely remember my dreams ashore but almost always do at sea. Something about sleeping in a washing machine allows better access to the subconscious."

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

"There are few events filled with as much promise as the prospect of stepping ashore after a long passage."

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

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

"The more technology we add, the more likely we are to get ourselves into a situation where that stuff absolutely must work, and the less likely it is that we will be able to manage safely without it."

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea."

"It's called wayfinding, princess. It's not just sails and knots. It's seeing where you're going in your mind. Knowing where you are, by knowing where you've been."

"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.'"

"...we were to discover that happiness has no frontiers, that it's a state of mind and not a possession, not a set route through life, not a goal to gained but something that steals in gently like an evening mist or the morning sunlight - something beyond our control."