Richard Bach Flying Quotations

It had never gotten old for him, flying. Never gone boring. Every engine start was a new adventure, guiding the spirit of a lovely machine back into life; every takeoff blending his spirit with its own to do what's never been done in history, to lift away from the ground and fly.

Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground.

Grief is no more necessary when we understand death than fear is necessary when we understand flying.

Flying prevails whenever a man and his airplane are put to a test of maximum performance.

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

Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

When you're flying, an airplane doesn't care who you are; it doesn't care how much money you make or don't make. All it cares about is: How well do you fly? How well do you know the airplane? How well do you know the sky?

Same with anyone who's been flying for years and loves it still... we're part of a world we deeply love. Just as musicians feel about scores and melodies, dancers about the steps and flow of music, so we're one with the principle of flight, the magic of being aloft in the wind!

For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.

What if somebody came along who could teach me how my world works and how to control it What if I could meet a super-advanced ... what if a Siddhartha or a Jesus came into our time, with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them And what if I could meet him in person, if he were flying a biplane, for instance, and landed in the same meadow with me.

For most gulls it was not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again