It was not the cold that made you want to rush out as soon as you'd jumped in; it was the unmeasured depth - our fear of what was on the bottom, and how far below us the bottom was.

Just because you think it’s safe here, it doesn’t mean this is the right place for you, her heart countered. Sometimes where you feel most safe is where you least belong.

If you are falling....dive.

Launch not beyond your depth

Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet.

How can you see the wave, when you’re the water?

Get ready: The truth is too valuable to put safety first. Get set: No amount of exposure is unbearable unless you let it be. Go: If you get caught with your pants down, take ’em off.

If you want to go down deep you do not need to travel far; indeed, you don’t have to leave your most immediate and familiar surroundings.

Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.

Seek opportunity, not security. A boat in the harbor is safe, but in time its bottom will rot out.

Go into your fear. Silently enter into it, so you can find its depth. And sometimes it happens that it is not very deep.

It isn't falling in that causes you to drown, it's staying in.

Feeling far away from what we want tells us one of two things about our work: that we are at the beginning or that we have forgotten where we were going.

When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back. Your only choice is to swim forward into the unknown … and pray for an exit.