How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you're a dead man? You go to work.

Look at it! It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, man! Let me go out there and let me get one wave, just one wave before you take me in. I mean, come on man, where I am I gonna go? Cliffs on both sides! I'm not gonna paddle my way to New Zealand! Come on, compadre. Come on!

When those you love die, the best you can do is honor their spirit for as long as you live. You make a commitment that you're going to take whatever lesson that person or animal was trying to teach you, and you make it true in your own life... It's a positive way to keep their spirit alive in the world, by keeping it alive in yourself.

You know, I am a Leo. Lion is a giant part of me.

I keep dreaming of a future, a future with a long and healthy life, not lived in the shadow of cancer but in the light.

One thing I'm not going to do is chase staying alive. You spend so much time chasing staying alive, you won't live.

To be honest, I've made a game out of trying to live through my James Dean, Janis Joplin, Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison period, those demons that we all have that we're either successful or not at making work for us rather than destroy us.