I guess I'm a hopeful optimist, because to be a pessimist is to be suicidal.

I dive as much as I can.

Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.

No, the shark in an updated JAWS could not be the villain; it would have to be written as the victim, for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors.

I've never been hurt by a sea creature, except for jellyfish and sea urchins.

He would have lied to himself as facilely as an alcoholic lies to himself to justify the 10 a.m. tumbler of vodka : it may be early here, but in Baghdad it's almost evening.

Oceanography is a terrific career because gradually we seem to be coming around to realize that we had better become as acquainted with the seventy percent of our planet that is covered by water as we are with the dark side of the moon.