With the stick in my right hand, the throttle in my left, and the rudder beneath my feet, I can savor that essence from which life is made.

Flight is romance - not in the sense of sexual attraction, but as an experience that enriches life.

It's the most exciting thing you have ever done with your pants on!

Here you are truly separate from the earth, at least for a little while, removed from the cares and concerns that occupy you on the ground.

The most crucial thing is to learn the craft: how to string sentences together, how to make your dialogue sound like real people, how to properly pace a story, how to develop interesting characters.

The hard, inescapable reality is that anyone who flies may die in an airplane.

Writers shouldn't fall in love with their characters so much that they lose sight of what they're trying to accomplish. The idea is to write a whole story, a whole book. A writer has to be able to look at that story and see whether or not a character works, whether or not a character needs further definition.