Tori Murden Mcclure Quotes

During dinner a sea turtle stopped by for a visit. At three or four feet in length... the turtle swam alongside for about twenty minutes, its head bobbing just above the surface of the water. Then with laughing eyes the turtle passed me..being left behind by a turtle pricked up my competitive nature. I pulled harder trying to keep up, but I couldn't catch the turtle. Soon I was reduced to laughter. " I am in the North Atlantic in a rowboat, racing a turtle...and loosing. Okay, so they can swim thirty miles an hour. Out here, I am the tortoise and it's the hare.

You’re not going to save the world. All you can do is pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.

The greatest freedom allotted to any human being is the freedom to choose one’s attitude. Whatever the weather, it is my weather, and I must do my best to enjoy it.

I would not give up my books even to fly free as a bird. The written word is the connective tissue of human experience. Without knowledge, freedom suffocates.

First the bad news. I am 980 miles from shore in a half-submerged boat without engine or sail. My body has been beaten to a bloody pulp. I have precisely one liter of fresh water. The good news is that I am alive.

It is a tenet of monastic traditions that it is only when a life cannot spread out that it is able to rise to greater heights. I valued solitude. Still, the chance to talk to someone was excruciatingly pleasant, even if only for a few precious minutes.

Reprimands will not bring the waves into line. Anger will not alter the wind. Sadness will not bring back the Gulf Stream. The greatest freedom allotted to any human being is the freedom to choose one's attitude. Whatever the weather, it is my weather, and I must do my best to enjoy it.

I felt proud not to be searching for life in the absent corners of weekends. My mind bragged to itself about holding the vitality of existence in my fingertips.

I was lost in this world. My compass, sextant, and charts were useless. I knew my location, but I had misplaced my sense of place.

As long as the union between mind and body remains intact, I will cling to the idea that outcomes can be influenced, actions taken, and obstacles overcome.

My life is not lonely so much as unadorned. On the ocean there is no duplicity. I row. I eat. I sleep. I fix things. Insincerity began to fade when my communications system went out. I save my food wrappers but toss all pretense of special virtue overboard.

Modern conveniences equate with disposability. When things break, we throw them away. When friendships break, we throw them away. After all, there are so many people.

Have you ever heard of a successful victim?

My dear, we all throw water at the ocean. Some of us think it is very serious business.

All I did was ease the path a little, but that’s what matters. Isn’t that how we beat helplessness?

Our depression has nothing to do with a loss of control. It has everything to do with a tragic loss of clarity.

I hadn’t written anything in my journal that wasn’t true. I hadn’t written anything that didn’t happen. But I couldn’t help noticing that every thought was neatly polished for public consumption. My

You can’t travel the road to wisdom in a feather bed.” When

Is life nothing more than a sterile intellectual exercise? I might learn all that there is to know, but if I do not do something with that knowledge, what purpose will it serve? The good and the evil around us are perfectly clear, yet we choose not to see. We moralize. We rationalize. We shield ourselves behind our incompetent helplessness. If we are competent, if we are not helpless, if we are not blind, then we are responsible.

It was clear to me that the whole “lady” thing was an evil conspiracy designed to keep girls incompetent and helpless.

For the educated person the world is an open book; to the ignorant, it is an unsolved mystery.

Why am I supposed to be afraid of the dark? People die from hunger, from cold, from injury and illness, but what peril is there in the sun going down? It is an interior darkness, the darkness of mind, that is deadly, not the dark of night.

As a third grader, I didn’t understand that apathy is a symptom of collective helplessness.

I couldn’t imagine anything more ignominious than being rescued at sea. Nothing would cause a greater offense to my self-reliant pride. I repeated what I knew Gérard would say: “This situation is uncomfortable but not life-threatening.

Ocean rowing is like mountain climbing—you’re either working your butt off or you’re sitting still waiting for the weather to change.

The satellite navigator may have been a brick, but, despite its dependence on batteries, this GPS is worth its weight in…chocolate. (Gold has no value to a woman alone in a rowboat on the ocean.)