I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit.

If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.

There is no kind of ultimate goal to do something twice as good as anyone else can. It's just to do the job as best you can. If it turns out good, fine. If it doesn't, that's the way it goes.

You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can't, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don't give up.

You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.

The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down.

I have flown in just about everything, with all kinds of pilots in all parts of the world - British, French, Pakistani, Iranian, Japanese, Chinese - and there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between any of them except for one unchanging, certain fact: the best, most skillful pilot has the most experience.