I have lifted my plane . . . for perhaps a thousand flights and I have never felt her wheels glide from the Earth into the air without knowing the uncertainty and the exhilaration of first-born adventure.

all the science of flying has been captured in the breadth of an instrument board, but not the religion of it.

Talk lives in a man’s head, but sometimes it is very lonely because in the heads of many men there is nothing to keep it company - and so talk goes out through the lips.

A lovely horse is always an experience.... It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words.

A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.

the sun is as dispassionate as the hand of a man who greets you with his mind on other things.

To me, desert has the quality of darkness; none of the shapes you see in it are real or permanent. Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless, and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility. When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of its coming is lost.