Kurson Quotes

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

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

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

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 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

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

Stories were heirlooms in these parts. ~ 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

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

The feeling of a place was the best reason to go. ~ 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

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

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

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

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

It's never too late in life to have a genuine adventure. ~ 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

Reputation became the pirates' sharpest sword. ~ 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

Action and adventure on land and sea-you can't ask for more. But Robert Kurson raises the ante in Pirate Hunters with an array of mystery and a fleet of colorful characters spanning four centuries. This is a great summer read! ~ Michael Connelly

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

More John Doe than Mike May. He played with this changing ~ 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

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

Even their downtime was epic. ~ 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

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