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.

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

Airplanes are like women - pick what you like and try to get it away from the guy who has it, then dress it out to the limit of your wallet and taste.

Here above the farms and ranches of the Great Plains aviation lives up to the promise that inspired dreamers through the ages. 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. This separation from the earth is more than symbolic, more than a physical removal - it has an emotional dimension as tangible as the wood, fabric, and steel that has transported you aloft.

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.

This thing we call luck is merely professionalism and attention to detail, it's your awareness of everything that is going on around you, it's how well you know and understand your airplane and your own limitations. Luck is the sum total of your of abilities as an aviator. If you think your luck is running low, you'd better get busy and make some more. Work harder. Pay more attention. Do better preflights.

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.