Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.

Rule books are paper - they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal.

There are two kinds of airplanes - those you fly and those that fly you . . . You must have a distinct understanding at the very start as to who is the boss.

Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time.

There is no more alluring airspace in the world than the slit up a China girl's dress.

Electronics were rascals, and they lay awake nights trying to find some way to screw you during the day. You could not reason with them. They had a brain and intestines, but no heart.

The emergencies you train for almost never happen. It's the one you can't train for that kills you.

Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell.

MaCleod, since you've flown the SeaBee a lot you'll understand when I say it was the only airplane I ever owned that you could put in a dive, loose a cylinder and stall out!

I want a boat that drinks 6, eats 4, and sleeps 2.

It's remarkable how quickly a good and favorable wind can sweep away the maddening frustrations of shore living.

That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other.

It's not a science when you are judging art, but we'd be remiss to say you can't look at something and say, 'This is more well done than that.'

Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.

If you use tact you can say anything, then make it funny.

Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.

Without continuous personal development, you are now all that you will ever become, and hell starts when the person you are meets the person you could have been.

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.

Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris ? It's not known, it's never been tried.

'The Brady Bunch' asks nothing of you as a viewer. Sometimes is just what the doctor ordered.

Imagination is a great thing in long dull hours, but it's a real curse in a dark alley.