That's what I think people sense when they get hooked by surfing – hooked by their relationship with the ocean. All of a sudden, they're part of something that's bigger than them.
CARROLL, NICK – The Search for Meaning Collection, Caroline Jones
If you're going to make a big wave, you have to be totally unified with everything that's happening. Maybe in the moment of having to know everything all at once you burst through the barriers of trying to put things in order.
CARROLL, NICK
Surfing is all about living in the moment. When you walk out on the Sydney Cricket Ground to play cricket you’re intensely aware of the history of the sport; you’re playing on this historic ground surrounded by pictures of the legends. With surfing, you just dive into the water and paddle out and catch waves.
CARROLL, NICK – The Search for Meaning Catalogue, Caroline Jones
You're actually inside the surfboard… you're inside the landscape around you and the ocean is surging, you get totally inside the moment and it's so intense that time disappears, you disappear.
CARROLL, NICK
I know when I’ve been surfing I’ve got a sense of level of calmness to me, and when I hit the ocean, even in its presence, at the shore, and especially by a powerful surf, I’ve been put in my place as a person.
CARROLL, NICK – The Search for Meaning Collection, Caroline Jones
You get moments where your whole body, soul and mind are just concentrated on doing something in the surf. You have to just get up, trust your instinct and fall into the wave. It's during seconds like that that you seem to just totally disappear, you as a being don't really exist at that moment… you throw yourself into the moment so heavily that you're actually inside the surfboard and what it's doing. You're inside the landscape around you and the ocean as it's surging. You get totally inside the moment and it's so intense that time disappears, everything disappears. You disappear, you're not thinking of you, Nick Carroll or whoever. It's way beyond that.