Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.
E.B. White's essays are the best things I've read about Maine - especially the one in which he's not sure if he can go out sailing any more in his sloop.
Aside from what it teaches you, there is simply the indescribable degree of peace that can be achieved on a sailing vessel at sea. I guess a combination of hard work and the seemingly infinite expanse of the sea - the profound solitude - that does it for me.
Most sailing ships take what they call trainees, who pay to be part of the crew. The Picton Castle takes people who are absolutely raw recruits. But you can't just ride along. You're learning to steer the ship, navigation; you're pulling lines, keeping a lookout; in the galley you're cooking.
If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn't worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge, because it's life or death.
Their elegant shape, showy colours, and slow, sailing mode of flight, make them very attractive objects, and their numbers are so great that they form quite a feature in the physiognomy of the forest, compensating for the scarcity of flowers.
I started sailing because I had to stop playing tennis so much, as I had bad knees.
Barack Obama has brought glamour back to American politics - not the faux glamour-by-association of campaigning with movie stars or sailing with the Kennedys, but the real thing. The candidate himself is glamorous. Audiences project onto him the personal qualities and political positions they want in a president.
When my dad hit 40, he quit everything. He sold the house and bought the boat and went off sailing the world. I was on that boat from age 12 to 18. We didn't actually go around the world. We went pretty much from France through the whole Mediterranean basin. We went to Ireland first. We also went to coast of Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
There is so much to sailing a ship. There's about a thousand different lines on a brig ship, and knowing what each one of those does, it takes a long time, and that's why you have these cabin boys that start on the ship, and they learn throughout the years, and that's why it takes so long to captain one.
My goal in sailing isn't to be brilliant or flashy in individual races, just to be consistent over the long run.
We shall not be happy unless we live like good animals, unless we enjoy the exercise of the ordinary functions of life: eating, sleeping, loving, walking, running, swimming, riding, sailing.
My grandmother is British. She was in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force during World War II. That's where she met my grandfather, who was sailing for the British Royal Navy. She was a war bride.
I love sailing but hate cruise ships.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
I remember that, at an early age, I spent many months making a three-masted sailing boat with rigging in a half-walnut shell.
Whether or not you discover your talents and passions is partly a matter of opportunity. If you've never been sailing, or picked up an instrument, or tried to teach or to write fiction, how would you know if you had a talent for these things?
In typical sailing races a long time ago, you'd come in and go out, and the first thing you'd do is probably have a cold beer. The first thing we do now is have a protein shake and our recovery drink.
I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.
When I was 11 years old, my parents wanted me to do something besides get in trouble. So they enrolled me in sailing classes at the Sea Shell Association in Santa Barbara, Calif. From the moment I climbed into that 8-foot dinghy in 1952, I knew instinctively what to do and sensed I had done it before.
It's easy to be a short-term hero. It is very easy for me to get tremendous results very short term, get that translated into compensation, and be off sailing in the Bahamas. But the goal for this company - and it's very difficult to do - the goal is to follow a four- or five-year process.
If the Lord says to give more than you think you are able to give, know that He will provide for you. Whether things are sailing smoothly or the bottom has dropped out, He is always trustworthy. You can count on Almighty God to keep His everlasting Word.
My uncle was skipper on the old Claymore sailing out from Oban to the Inner Hebrides. My father worked for MacBraynes all his life, on freight boats and then on ferries crossing to Skye, Barra, Uist, the small isles and Iona.
From B.A. to M.A. and on to Ph.D., my academic career was all smooth sailing. Upon receiving my degrees, I stayed on to teach at Beijing Normal University.
