If you want to touch the other shore badly enough, barring an impossible situation, you will. If your desire is diluted for any reason, you'll never make it.

The spirit is larger than the body. The body is pathetic compared to what we have inside us

A lot of athletes have this sort of invincibility: [The jellyfish] should worry about me. I don't worry about them. I'll just swim right through them.

There is... nothing greater than touching the shore after crossing some great body of water knowing that I've done it with my own two arms and legs.

Swimming is probably the ultimate of burnout sports. It's ironic because millions of people who swim as their regular exercise love the meditation aspect of it; you don't wind up with any orthopedic injuries. But when you swim at a world class level for hours and hours - the loneness of the long distance runner.

I wanted to teach myself some life lessons at the age of 60 and one of them was that you don't give up.

You're never too old to chase your dream.