Robert Kurson Quotes & Sayings

I had an advantage over a lot of people who had gone to school and earned degrees in writing and had learned the rules for writing, so to speak. My style was just to tell a story but to tell it well, and that has worked out for me so far. — Robert Kurson

In the United States, of the ten million certified scuba divers, it is likely that only a few hundred dive deep for shipwrecks. To those few, it is not a matter of if they will taste death, only of whether they'll swallow. — Robert Kurson

If a deep-wreck diver stays in the sport long enough, he will likely either come close to dying, watch another diver die, or die himself. There are times in this sport when it is difficult to say which of the three outcomes is worst. — Robert Kurson

Once you discover that real pirates are more interesting than fictional ones, you can't look away. — Robert Kurson

Sometimes the imagination could be even crueler than the bone saw. — Robert Kurson

It's never too late in life to have a genuine adventure. — Robert Kurson

When things are easy a person doesn't really learn about himself. It's what a person does at the moment of his greatest struggle that shows him who he really is. Some people never get that moment. The U-Who is my moment. What I do now is what I am. — Robert Kurson

Piracy was risky business, and injuries were commonplace; a single lost limb or gouged-out eye could end a pirate's career. To encourage pirates not to hesitate in battle - and out of a sense of fairness - many pirate crews compensated wounded crewmen in predetermined amounts. — Robert Kurson

It wasn't who a person believed himself to be or what he pretended he would do in a given situation. It was what he did when he got there that defined him. — Robert Kurson

Pirates did not store all their treasures in treasure chests, then bury them and draw maps to them. That's a movie invention. In reality, pirates spent their money as fast as they could steal it because they knew they were living on borrowed time. They didn't want to wait around to enjoy the money. — Robert Kurson

I'm a product of the 1970s, so I have a short attention span. You know, I grew up on cartoons and half-hour shows. So the stories that I'm interested in grab my attention very quickly, and they have to keep my attention. — Robert Kurson

I read almost exclusively nonfiction when I read, because even though it's harder to find a great true story, when you find one, the idea that it actually happened is immensely powerful.That's what moves me the most. — Robert Kurson

Even their downtime was epic. — Robert Kurson

Reputation became the pirates' sharpest sword. — Robert Kurson

More John Doe than Mike May. He played with this changing — Robert Kurson

I have two parents who are brilliant storytellers. The art of developing a story and nurturing a story was present in my household from the day I was born. — Robert Kurson

Pirates almost never sailed with women. Just four or five are known to have worked as pirates during the Golden Age. Two of them - Mary Read and Anne Bonny - became famous, dressing as men and fighting alongside one of the most celebrated of all pirate captains, 'Calico' Jack Rackham. — Robert Kurson

Pirate ships were built for stealth and invisibility. They filed no manifests with any agency or government. When they went missing or sunk, nobody went looking for them. They simply disappeared into the ether. — Robert Kurson

Pirates worked to avoid violence and fighting. — Robert Kurson

Stories were heirlooms in these parts. — Robert Kurson

I have been interested in pirates since I was about 8 years old. The idea of people deciding, sometimes at a moment's notice, to throw over the rules and restrictions of society - it was just irresistible. — Robert Kurson

- Examine everything; not all is as it seems or as people tell you. — Robert Kurson

Many dead divers have been found inside shipwrecks with more than enough air remaining to have made it to the surface. It is not that they chose to die, but rather that they could no longer figure out how to live. — Robert Kurson

Violence, as it is for the mafia and most other criminal organizations, was bad for pirate business. By doing battle with prey, pirates risked damage to their own ships and injury to their crews. It also made them bigger targets for law enforcement. — Robert Kurson

It was easy to get an incomplete picture of the world if one relied solely on experts, and how important is would be to further rely on oneself — Robert Kurson

I think it's strange for people to read about themselves, no matter what's portrayed or how it's portrayed. But they get used to it, and I think they're fine with it. — Robert Kurson

For my new book 'Pirate Hunters', I follow John Chatterton and John Mattera, two world-class scuba divers, who teach themselves to think and act as pirates while searching for what would be only the second pirate ship ever found and positively identified. — Robert Kurson

I love nonfiction the most. It's hard to find a good nonfiction story, and that's why I'm not as prolific, I guess, as a lot of people. They're hard to find. I love the nonfiction writer Ben Macintyre. I think he's terrific at the form of telling a story in a cinematic way. — Robert Kurson

This is the greatest pirate story ever," Bowden said. "And no one knows about it. — Robert Kurson

There is pressure when you have a very big book like 'Shadow Divers' to follow up with something big. But you can't let that pressure determine what you do. You just look for the best stories, and when you find a great one, you tell it. — Robert Kurson

Port Royal, Jamaica, was built for pirates. The town had a well-protected harbor, corrupt politicians and townsfolk, and a set of ethics that seemed passed down from Sodom and Gomorrah. — Robert Kurson

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that pirates did wear eye patches and have peg legs and have brightly colored beads. I never knew what the beads were for. They really were for frightening and terrifying their prey. — Robert Kurson

He rolled with the unexpected - and much was unexpected on Seeker trips - because he believed in No matter what. — Robert Kurson

Real pirates were better than in movies, more daring and terrifying and cunning than any screenwriter could imagine. They operated during the Golden Age of Piracy, from 1650 to 1720. — Robert Kurson

History was a crystal ball that told as much about the future as it did about the past. — Robert Kurson

I think that pirates represent every person's ability to get up and leave their current daily situation and go on an adventure, and maybe to see things and do things they've never done before or even dreamed of doing. — Robert Kurson

More than reading - much more than reading, in fact - I developed a love for telling stories from listening to two parents who really knew how to do it. And it really is an art. — Robert Kurson

It was too late for he and his father to have an adventure, and NOTHING seemed to have any color anymore. — Robert Kurson

In a world where even the moon had been traveled, the floor of the Atlantic remained uncharted wilderness, its shipwrecks beacons for men compelled to look. — Robert Kurson

A century before the concept took hold in America, pirate ships were democracies. Most captains were elected by crew and could be voted out anytime. — Robert Kurson

So many of the pleasures of recreational scuba diving don't exist for the deep wreck diver. It's not beautiful scenery for the most part; in fact, it's usually very dark. It's physically burdensome. These guys carry almost two hundred pounds of equipment, and should any of that equipment fail, they risk death. — Robert Kurson

Most men, it seemed to them, went through life never really knowing themselves. A man might consider himself noble or brave or just, they believed, but until he was truly tested it would always be mere opinion. — Robert Kurson

John Chatterton is the kind of person who always seems to be up to some kind of incredible adventure. — Robert Kurson

The feeling of a place was the best reason to go. — Robert Kurson

The more I learned about real pirates, the more exciting they seemed to me. They appeared to be even more dramatic than pirates of the movies or TV shows. — Robert Kurson