Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.

Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.

In this business, you find the enemy, then go after and destroy him. Everything else is rubbish!

The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business in to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down. His trained hand and eye and judgment are as much a part of his armament as his machinegun, and a fiftyfifty chance is the worst he will take or should take except where the show is of the kind that . . . justifies the sacrifice of plane or pilot.

Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.

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

There is a peculiar gratification in receiving congratulations from one's squadron for a victory in the air. It is worth more to a pilot than the applause of the whole outside world.