I've learned that it is what I do not know that I fear, and I strive, outwardly from pride, inwardly from the knowledge that the unknown is what will finally kill me, to know all there is to be known about my airplane. I will never die.
Richard BachA cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
Richard BachI’m here not because I am supposed to be here, or because I’m trapped here, but because I’d rather be with you than anywhere else in the world.
Richard BachWe can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.
Richard BachYou choose, you live the consequences. Every yes, no, maybe, creates the school you call your personal experience.
Richard BachWe [people] have a teacher! The teacher is ourselves! We already know everything we need to know - our challenge is to discover that we know it. Turning to gurus, I think, we become guru-dependent, no different from drug-dependent, alcohol-dependent - needing an outside force to control our lives.
Richard BachJonathan is that brilliant little fire that burns within us all, that lives only for those moments when we reach perfection.
Richard BachWhen we put up with any situation we don’t have to put up with, it’s not because we’re dumb. We put up with it, because we want the lesson only that situation can teach, and we want it more than freedom myself.
Richard BachOur disasters have been some of the best things that ever happened to us. And what we swore were blessings have been some of the worst.
Richard BachLive never to be ashamed if anything you say or do is published around the world, even if what is said is not true.
Richard BachI think the source of our sorrow and the source of our joy are intimately entwined. Our sorrow is that we have forgotten who we are, we have forgotten we are one with that source of all life - absolutely indestructible, perfect, joyful. The source of our joy is when we remember that.
Richard BachThere’s no disaster that can’t become a blessing, and no blessing that can’t become a disaster.
Richard BachIt is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost.
Richard BachYou will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.
Richard BachPart One: I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy. Part Two: Everybody else is free to do whatever they feel like doing, for a living. Part Three: Responsible is Able to Respond, able to answer for the way we choose to live. There's only one person we have to answer to, of course, and that is ourselves.
Richard BachTwo things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else s list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.
Richard BachCare about understanding and before you know it, in just a few decades, you'll have a system of thinking that gives you answers whenever you ask.
Richard BachJonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with those gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.
Richard BachLike most writers, we like to find what we know and pass it along to anyone who cares. When that's done, as soon as we've said the best we can say, there's nothing else about us that's remotely interesting to anybody else, and we go back behind the walls. We can be intimate in books, we can be intimate in talks, but then we need time to be alone.
Richard BachI belong to a group of men who fly alone. There is only one seat in the cockpit of a fighter airplane. There is no space alotted for another pilot to tune the radios in the weather or make the calls to air traffic control centers or to help with the emergency procedures or to call off the airspeed down final approach. There is no one else to break the solitude of a long cross-country flight. There is no one else to make decisions.
Richard BachWe think, sometimes, there’s not a dragon left. Not one brave knight, not a single princess gliding through secret forests... What a pleasure to be wrong. Princesses, knights, enchantments and dragons, mystery and adventure... not only are they here-and-now, they’re all that ever lived on earth!
Richard BachSooner I'd try to change history than turn political, than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they didn't already feel like doing.
Richard BachTwo thousand years ago, five thousand, they didn't have a word for imagination, and faith was the best they could come up with for a pretty solemn bunch of followers.
Richard BachYou are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self.
Richard BachI do not enjoy writing at all. If I can turn my back on an idea, out there in the dark, if I can avoid opening the door to it, I won't even reach for a pencil.
Richard BachIt's easy to live the expected and conventional. It's when you live the unexpected that you start having fun with your life.
Richard BachWe're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live.
Richard BachWe wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.
Richard BachI'm not a celebrity or near celebrity. Sometimes people will say, "You're famous" and that stops me right there. What does fame mean? Fame is in the eye of the beholder. So, if somebody wants to call me 'famous', that's their business. I'm just me, a guy who messes around with airplanes and writes books that make sense to him.
Richard BachMost gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again
Richard BachRespect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love.
Richard Bach