I'd made it this far and refused to give up because all my life I had always finished the race.

To persevere, I think, is important for everybody. Don't give up, don't give in. There's always an answer to everything.

People say, on the raft, you must have hallucinated. Baloney. We were sharper after 47 days than the day we started because our minds were empty of all the war and contamination; we had clean minds to fill with good thoughts. Every day we'd exercise our minds.

I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing...forgiveness.

All I did was pray to God, every day. In prison camp, the main prayer was, 'Get me home alive, God, and I'll seek you and serve you.' I came home, got wrapped up in the celebration, and forgot about the hundreds of promises I'd made to God.

If you hate somebody, it's like a boomerang that misses its target and comes back and hits you in the head. The one who hates is the one who hurts.