The smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Selfdistrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.

Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.

The key to success, is to think things through and then follow through.

The sensation of dying is sweet, sensuous, placid. It is the easiest thing in the world to die. The hardest is to live.

Major Richard Bong was an example of the tragic and terrible price we must pay to maintain principles of human rights, of greater value than life itself. This gallant Air Force hero will be remembered because he made his final contribution to aviation in the dangerous role of test pilot of an untried experimental plane, a deed that places him among the stout-hearted pioneers who gave their lives in the conquest of sky and space.

I can give you a six-word formula for success: "Think things through - then follow through."

When I look up and see the sun shining on the patch of white clouds up in the blue, I begin to think how it would feel to be up somewhere above it winging swiftly through the clean air, watching the earth below.