Diana Nyad Quotations

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 don't want to be the crazy woman who does it for years and years and years, and tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails, but I can swim from Cuba to Florida, and I will swim from Cuba to Florida.

There's so much boldness in living life this way, and we did it all, and no one can take it away from us.

All of us suffer difficulties in our lives. And if you say to yourself 'find a way,' you'll make it through.

Endurance is not a young person's game. I thought I might even be better at 60 than I was at 30. You have a body that's almost as strong, but you have a much better mind.

For previous generations, swimming the English Channel was the feat to accomplish. And that's been done.

But for each of us, isn't life about determining your own finish line?

Write that novel. Start that business you've always wanted to. The ultimate high of life is the commitment to pursuing something.

This journey has always been about reaching your own other shore no matter what it is, and that dream continues.

It's not too late, I can still live my dreams.

The highs were high, the awe, I'm not a religious person, but I'll tell you, to be in the azure blue of the Gulf Stream as if, as you're breathing, you're looking down miles and miles and miles, to feel the majesty of this blue planet we live on, it's awe-inspiring.

I've never been in any pain, ever, like that in my whole life. Now it's set me so far back, I just don't' have the lung capacity to swim the way I can.

The most venomous animal that lives in the ocean is the box jellyfish. And every one of those barbs is sending that venom into this central nervous system. So first I feel like boiling hot oil I've been dipped in. And I'm yelling out, 'Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Help me! Somebody help me!' And the next thing is paralysis.

You don't simply tell someone to get out there and win the tennis match. You say 'move your feet' or 'watch the fuzz on the ball' to really get into the Zen of it. You pull all that together, and then you just might hold up the Wimbledon Plate... It's not about winning first place but bringing every element of effort to whatever you do.

I do write all the time about - you tell me what your dreams are. What are you chasing? It's not impossible. Name it.

I swam. We made it, our team, from the rocks of Cuba to the beach of Florida, in squeaky-clean, ethical fashion.

About the 50th hour, I was going to start thinking about the edge of the universe. Is there an edge? Is this an envelope we're living inside of, or no, does it go onto infinity in both time and space? And there's nothing like swimming for 50 hours in the ocean that gets you thinking about things like this.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

I think 60 is when many people hit their prime. We elect many of our presidents in their 60s. At that age, people are full of ideas and their best self. I wanted to dig into my potential and bring out my best self.

You have a dream 35 years ago - doesn't come to fruition, but you move on with life. But it's somewhere back there. Then you turn 60, and your mom just dies, and you're looking for something. And the dream comes waking out of your imagination.

When I walk up on that shore in Florida, I want millions of those AARP sisters and brothers to look at me and say, 'I'm going to go write that novel I thought it was too late to do. I'm going to go work in Africa on that farm that those people need help at. I'm going to adopt a child. It's not too late, I can still live my dreams.'

I think I'm going to my grave without swimming from Cuba to Florida,

It's been a grand, elevating, life-confirming experience these last two years.

The box jellyfish takes you into an area of what I'd call science fiction. You feel like you've been dipped in hot burning oil. You burst into flames.

There are some days where I'll eat 8,000 calories per day, on a day before a 12, 14, 18 hour swim. For a 61-year-old woman, that's a lot! And I try not to eat too much refined sugar - cookies, desserts, those sorts of things.

I want to see all the countries in the world and learn all the languages. I want to have thousands of friends and I want all my friends to be different. I want to play six instruments. I want to be the best in the world at two things. I want to be a great athlete and I want to be a great surgeon. I need to practice very hard every day. I need to sleep as little as possible. I need to read at least one major book every week. And I need to remember that my seventy years are going to go by too quickly.

If you can just immerse yourself in your life, it doesn't matter what you do everyday. Just do it intensely. Be in it, so that when you go to sleep you're exhausted every night and you say, 'Whoa, I just couldn't have done any more with that day.'

From age eleven to age sixteen I lived a spartan life without the usual adolescent uncertainty. I wanted to be the best swimmer in the world, and there was nothing else.

Just getting in the pool for seven straight hours is unbearable to me.... It's grueling. There's nothing physically pleasurable about it. If you're doing a hard workout, you're throwing up in the gutter. At night you cling to your pillow and just hope that your body revives before you have to go back and do it again.

This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you,

The mantra I used was 'find a way.'

I have an uncompromising relationship with my goals.

The integrity and self-esteem gained from winning the battle against extremity are the richest treasures in my life

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 all authentic. It's a great story. You have a dream 35 years ago - doesn't come to fruition, but you move on with life. But it's somewhere back there. Then you turn 60, and your mom just dies, and you're looking for something. And the dream comes waking out of your imagination,

I am interested in the unknown, and the only path to the unknown is through breaking barriers, an often painful process.

I have three messages," said the breathless Nyad."One is we should never ever give up. Two is you are never too old to chase your dreams. And three is it looks like a solitary sport but it takes a team.

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.

My mom just died. We blink and another decade passes. I don't want to reach the end of my life and regret not having given my days everything in me to make them worthwhile.

Every human being on this planet has their pain and their heartache and it's up to all of us to find our way back to the light.

When you achieve your Dreams It's not so much what you get, It's who you become.

When you reach for the horizon, as I've proven, you may not get there, but what a tremendous build of character and spirit that you lay down. What a foundation you lay down in reaching for those horizons.

I am willing to put myself through anything; temporary pain or discomfort means nothing to me as long as I can see that the experience will take me to a new level.

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

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.

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.

You have a dream and you have obstacles in front of you as we all do. None of us ever get through this life without heartache, without turmoil, and if you believe and you have faith and you can get knocked down and get back up again and you believe in perseverance as a great human quality, you find your way.

I am overwhelmed by the strength of my body and the power of my mind. For one moment, just one second, I feel immortal.

In swimming, especially training out in the ocean and open water, you got fogged-over goggles, you're stuck with your own thoughts - there's great benefits to that, deep thinking like that after many hours, but there's also tremendous loneliness. You burn out. You want to run, jump, ski, do anything. So at age 30, I was finished.