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Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Book by William Finnegan · 3 quotes · Surfing, Adulthood, Challenge

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All Surfing Adulthood Challenge Growing Up Limits Passion Staying Calm Survival

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life Quotes

“For most surfers, I think—for me, certainly—waves have a spooky duality. When you are absorbed in surfing them, they seem alive. They each have personalities, distinct and intricate, and quickly changing moods, to which you must react in the most intuitive, almost intimate way—too many people have likened riding waves to making love. And yet waves are of course not alive, not sentient, and the lover you reach to embrace may turn murderous without warning. It’s nothing personal. That self-disemboweling death wave on the inside bar is not bloody-minded. Thinking so is just reflex anthropomorphism. Wave love is a one-way street.”

Passion Challenge Surfing

Book:Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Source: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

“Still, I wondered what Sam, mental illness and all, might have to tell us about adulthood. Why, for example, did it seem to be always receding as a concept, even as we got older?”

Growing Up Adulthood

Book:Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Source: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

“You were required — this was essential, a matter of survival — to know your limits, both physical and emotional. But how could you know your limits unless you tested them? And if you failed the test? You were also required to stay calm if things went wrong. Panic was the first step, everybody said, to drowning.”

Limits Survival Surfing Staying Calm

Book:Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Source: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life