Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It's the music a man's spirit sings to his heart, when the earth's far away and there isn't any more fear. It's the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.

Now listen, buddy, there are a few corny ideas you got to get out of your head if you're going to fly an airplane. Most things are just the reverse from what people think. The higher you are the safer you are. The Earth down there, that, that-s your enemy because once you hit that, boy, you splatter.

One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you're obliged to act like one

You show me a politician with his heels ten feet in the air, and by Judas priest, Ill show you an honest politician.

Now the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of things people don't understand. Take the Einstein theory. Take taxes. Take love. Do you understand them? Neither do I. But they exist. They happen.

I feel like my sixteenth birthday and the time I graduated from high school, and the first time I flew solo all wrapped up in one.

What's so noble about being dead?