Aviator Quotes

Sometimes I truly fear that I am losing my mind. And if I did it it would be like flying blind.

I intend to be, the richest man in the world.

I think the major event that shaped my life was being a Naval aviator. I got my commission and wings at 18 years old, and then I went into combat at 19. And I think, as I look back on it, that whole experience probably shaped my life more than any incident, or any event.

To feminine eyes a man's prestige, or his fame, envelops him in a luminous haze which obscures his faults. The triumphs of an aviator, an actor, a football player, an orator are often responsible for the beginning of a love affair.

It was a fabulous experience shooting [in the Aviator], working with Leo [DiCaprio] and Danny Huston in the scene. It was great. I think what was most eye-opening about it was that [Martin] Scorsese was just like any good director you work with.

Leo couldnt deliver Mr. Martin Scorsese his Oscar with The Aviator, but I will go on record to say I will do so in The Departed.

But whether the risks to which liberty exposes us are moral or physical our right to liberty involves the right to run them. A man who is not free to risk his neck as an aviator or his soul as a heretic is not free at all; and the right to liberty begins, not at the age of 21 years but 21 seconds.

All of us are called by something in this world that attracts us. And it doesn't matter what it is - you can be an engine mechanic or an aviator or you can be someone who loves their flower garden or the world of commerce or sailboats.

[The Aviator] came about through John Logan, who I've been friends with for many years.

John Logan is maybe the No. 1 screenwriter in the world today, not to mention that he won a Tony for Best Play for Red. So he may just be the best writer period right now. He wrote The Aviator, and I was in New York doing a play, and he asked if they would see me for the film, just meet with me. 'Cause that's what Martin Scorsese does.

We [with John Logan] started talking about The Searchers, and then he went on to tell me a story about when he first met John Wayne, and he said, "Hey, you be me and I'll be Wayne," and I said, "No, let me be Wayne!" Anyway, it was a very pleasant conversation, it was clear to him that I was a big movie fan, and by the time I got home, there was a phone call, asking if I'd mind doing one scene in the movie [The Aviator].

Then there was Nico di Angelo. Dang, that kid gave Leo the freaky-deakies. He sat back in his leather aviator jacket, his black T-shirt and jeans, that wicked silver skull ring on his finger, and the Stygian sword at his side. His tufts of black hair struck up in curls like baby bat wings. His eyes were sad and kind of empty, as if he’d stared into the depths of Tartarus—which he had.

California belongs to Joan Didion. Not the California where everyone wears aviator sunglasses, owns a Jacuzzi and buys his clothes on Rodeo Drive. But California in the sense of the West. The old West where Manifest Destiny was an almost palpable notion that was somehow tied to the land and the climate and one's own family-an unspoken belief that was passed down to children in stories and sayings.

Round, cat-eye frames, wayfarers, and aviators are my go-tos.

Versace pythons. Louis Aviators. Balenciagas & they gotta be the gladiators.

If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.

And so you try your best. Sometimes you go in with one thing, with one desire and come out with something else. In the case of 'The Aviator' it was to create a Hollywood spectacle, but by about the second or third week of shooting you just want to literally survive it. Because don't forget, I also go through the editing process too, and when the film is released I have to talk about it. So, I take all of that very seriously.

Remember the difference between a boss and a leader. A boss says, Go! A leader says, Let's go!

Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea.

Decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.

Success breeds confidence.

Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life become more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.

Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward.

The perfect place to begin is exactly where you are right now.

Use your fear... it can take you to the place where you store your courage.

I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary life time.

And let's get one thing straight. There's a big difference between a pilot and an aviator. One is a technician; the other is an artist in love with flight.

Flying without feathers is not easy: my wings have no feathers.

As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.

And, so I set my goals on astronaut because, as a military aviator, it was, I considered that to be about the peak of a flying career.

I began to feel that I lived on a higher plane than the skeptics of the ground; one that was richer because of its very association with the element of danger they dreaded, because it was freer of the earth to which they were bound. In flying, I tasted a wine of the gods of which they could know nothing. Who valued life more highly, the aviators who spent it on the art they loved, or these misers who doled it out like pennies through their antlike days? I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary life time.

Martin Scorcese is probably America's greatest living director, and while he is not a titan like John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock or Federico Fellini, he is certainly consistently more interesting than Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, Francis Ford Coppola or Woody Allen. Even a failure like Gangs of New York or a curiosity like The Aviator is more interesting and ambitious than Munich, The Black Dahlia or Scoop.

A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the study of so vast a subject. A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them.

Any idiot can get an airplane off the ground, but an aviator earns his keep by bringing it back anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances that man and God can dream up.

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

The Hercules' was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built... I put the sweat of my life into this thing.

Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe.

I decided blacks should not have to experience the difficulties I had faced, so I decided to open a flying school and teach other black women to fly.

If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.

I think there is something exhilarating in flying amongst clouds, and always get a feeling of wanting to pit my aeroplane against them, charge at them, climb over them to show them you have them beat, circle round them, and generally play with them; but clouds can on occasion hold their own against the aviator, and many a pilot has found himself emerging from a cloud not on a level keel.

The life of an aviator seemed to me ideal. It involved skill. It brought adventure. It made use of the latest developments of science. Mechanical engineers were fettered to factories and drafting boards while pilots have the freedom of wind with the expanse of sky. There were times in an aeroplane when it seemed I had escaped mortality to look down on earth like a God.

Every flyer who ventures across oceans to distant lands is a potential explorer; in his or her breast burns the same fire that urged adventurers of old to set forth in their sailing-ships for foreign lands.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.

The most important thing in fighting was shooting, next the various tactics in coming into a fight and last of all flying ability itself.

But accuracy means something to me. It's vital to my sense of values. I've learned not to trust people who are inaccurate. Every aviator knows that if mechanics are inaccurate. aircraft crash.

You can live a lifetime and at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

If a woman wants to fly, first of all she must, of course, abandon skirts and don a knickerbocker uniform.