“Everything out there was disturbingly interlaced with everything else. Waves were the playing field. They were the goal. They were the object of your deepest desire and adoration. At the same time, they were your adversary, your nemesis, even your… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
The differences between the received wisdom, the standard version of events, and the facts on the ground may be subtle or they may be… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
Writing is pretty flexible work, don't you think? If you want to surf, you just have to get a lot done when the waves… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
You're after something - not a story, but a certain, exquisitely intense encounter with beauty - and the only way to find it is… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
“When I finally came in and complained, she tried to explain, not for the first time, how exquisitely boring it was to watch surfing.… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
It's completely different, for instance, to report on poor farmers in Africa than it is to report on, say, poor African-Americans. The familiarity of my readers with the terrain, and their preconceptions, are quite different in those two cases, and their perspective, as I imagine it, has to be taken into account at every turn. — William Finnegan Copy Share
“Surfing, to begin with, was not a “sport.” It was a “path.” And the more you poured into it, the more you got back… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
“I later spent a year studying Finnegans Wake with Norman O. Brown, an exercise in masturbatory obscurantism that Bryan would never have undertaken—and he… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
Poor-country surf communities can be complex and, to some extent, leveling. The fisherman's kid is competing head to head with the plutocrat's gilded son.… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
I need to conduct myself differently in different communities. In my experience, the journalistic conventions - you know, I'm the reporter, you're the subject,… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
There are good waves not that far from Manhattan - on Long Island, in north Jersey. It's true that the best surf around here… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
I'm trying to find out what's actually true, which is nearly always something, if not a world of things, that you can't read in… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
I remember surfing in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, even Madeira, when local fishermen had never seen a surfboard before, and refused to believe that we… — William Finnegan Copy Share Image
