“In my heart, I am American, and I believe I have a free will and can take charge of my own destiny.”

“Do all kids have to worry about their parents mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times its the other way ar...”

“True freedom comes from being unknown.”

“She missed the built environment of New York City. It was only in an urban landscape, amid straight lines and architecture, that she could situate herself in human time and history. She missed peop...”

“There's so much to write. Where should I start?I texted my old Jiko this question, and she wrote me back this:'You should start where you are”

“In your diary, you quoted old Jiko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did I just dream that?Anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think ma...”

“It is for your own good to love a dare-devil rather than a holy coward. A dare-devil is a unique devil, battling your fears, your pains, conquering your uncertainties, carrying you his arms, and fl...”

“Life is not a battle to win but a melody to sing.”

“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”

“At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hea...”

“Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above t...”

“When Rachel Carson accepted the National Book Award, she said, 'if there is poetry in my book about the sea it is not because I deliberately put it there but because no one could write truthfully a...”