I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead.

While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.

When I watch species other than my own, their instinct's wisdom is what most impresses and disturbs me.

The essence of life, I concluded, did not lie in the material. It penetrated, but was not bound to, the physical world of science.

Our emphasis on science has resulted in an alarming rise in world populations, the demand and ever-increasing emphasis of science to improve their standards and maintain their vigor. I have been forced to the conclusion that an over-emphasis of science weakens character and upsets life's essential balance.

Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint.

If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.