My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home.

Whatever it is that calls us, that's our path. And as we walk that path, we have a chance to shine forth who we are. It affects other people around us.

The only thing that matters, at the end of a stay on earth, is how well did we love, what was the quality of our love?

What I love doing is basically two things: I love flying airplanes and I love communication.

Thousands of volumes have been written about aviation, but we do not automatically have thousands of true and special friends in their authors. That rare writer who comes alive on a page does it by giving of himself, by writing of meanings, and not just of fact or of things that have happened to him. The writers of flight who have done this are usually found together in a special section on private bookshelves.

If you don't want to be a teacher, you'd better get off this planet.

He moves not through distance, but through the ranges of satisfaction that come from hauling himself up into the air with complete and utter control; from knowing himself and knowing his airplane so well that he can come somewhere close to touching, in his own special and solitary way, that thing that is called perfection.