I just used to have a really normal life, working in an office.

The Milky Way swooped diagonally across the heavens, reminding me of my utter insignificance, and at the same time my complete interconnection with everything. I was just a tiny speck of consciousness, and yet I was consciousness itself.

Ocean rowing is very much what you make it. Rowing technique is pretty irrelevant on the ocean. It's the psychology that's important.

Fall down nine times, get up ten.

"Stepping outside your comfort zone is supposed to feel uncomfortable because we're in new and unfamiliar territory. Being uncomfortable is a sign of success, NOT of failure! So if we are uncomfortably outside our comfort zones, then than means we are growing!!! And THAT is cause for celebration!" (modified from a passage in Roz Savage's "Rowing the Atlantic")

I'm not claiming to be anything out of the ordinary. I am not especially big or strong or brave or intrepid.

My advice is don't keep asking yourself if you can do something. Just get out there and do it. You can really surprise yourself.