Yossi Ghinsberg

“I'd say that the only trauma I've suffered was existential.”

“So once you hit like that place, where everything is stripped from you, everything is taken from you, you really discover who you really are. I discovered that I'm a real hero, that I can deal with that situation, that I can rise up to the challenge.”

“I think we suffer from certain alienation. We live on this planet, but we somehow have an idea that we're elevated from it, that we're not nature. We're a creature that manages nature and is superior and does whatever it wants. That creates a separation between humanity and the rest of the planet.”

“If you find your freedom, if you find something that cannot be taken from you, then you're free. If your freedom depends on what you have, or you position, or your security, or anything that is just passing, because those are just waves of things.”

“You eat anything when you need energy to survive and there's nothing in your body, when you are becoming just bones and tissues and muscles and I don't wish those circumstances on anybody.”

“I have returned to the Amazon to thank the people that were involved in my rescue and upon meeting them I realised that their life is in danger. They have asked for my help on a community-based initiation of a tourism project.”

“Everyone at Arclight has been very supportive, professional, and warm, and working with producers Mike Gabrowy and Gary Hamilton has been a wonderful experience.”

“As to the Amazon itself, the transition from conservation to sustainable development was a huge awakening since conservation was a western concept and strategy to encourage the developing world to protect biodiversity resources for the sake of future generations and the wellbeing of the planet.”

“I had no lasting physical trauma nor a psychological one. Yet, it was hard to return to the old path. I found myself asking big questions: Why was my life spared? What is my purpose here? And it led me to a life of inquiry.”

“Yes, I'm a fan, and 'The Lost City of Z' has been my inspiration. Percy Fawcett was one of my heroes, and I loved the book and the film. I was lost in the same area that Fawcett had explored, and I can identify with his sense of passion and obsession, and I definitely see the romance in searching for lost treasure.”

“I think the main parenting or education you do for your children is by way of being, and not by way of having guidelines or some agenda. I think that life itself is constantly bringing learning opportunities.”

“When you lose everything, then you have something. It's exactly the opposite because everything that you have, it's not really yours. What is yours, you don't need to earn. It's yours by right.”

“I'm not an expert on India-Pakistan relations, but, Pakistan is big enough without Kashmir and India too is big enough without Kashmir.”

“Despite the natural belittling of one's self, the doubts, the insecurities, we have to wake up to the realisation that we all write our own autobiography, we are the authors of our life story. Realising that, write a good story with your life and make sure to write yourself as the protagonist. Be the hero of your journey.”

“I became a very simple person. The simple things are the most precious to me. I don't ascribe much significance to the things I have now. That feeling of touching death has never left me.”