Quotes about airplane

A collection of quotes on the topic of airplane, likeness, doing, use.

Quotes about airplane

Donald J. Trump photo
Marc Bloch photo
Hayao Miyazaki photo
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo

“Have you looked at a modern airplane? Have you followed from year to year the evolution of its lines?”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Ch III : The Tool
Variant translation of: <span id="perfection"></span>Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher.
Ch. III: L'Avion <!-- p. 60 -->
It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Context: Have you looked at a modern airplane? Have you followed from year to year the evolution of its lines? Have you ever thought, not only about the airplane but about whatever man builds, that all of man's industrial efforts, all his computations and calculations, all the nights spent over working draughts and blueprints, invariably culminate in the production of a thing whose sole and guiding principle is the ultimate principle of simplicity?
It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship's keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elementary purity of the curve of a human breast or shoulder, there must be the experimentation of several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“See the nigger fly the airplane!”

Hocus Pocus (1990)

Neil Young photo

“One of my favorite album covers is On the Beach. Of course that was the name of a movie and I stole it for my record, but that doesn't matter. The idea for that cover came like a bolt from the blue. Gary and I traveled around getting all the pieces to put it together. We went to a junkyard in Santa Ana to get the tail fin and fender from a 1959 Cadillac, complete with taillights, and watched them cut it off a Cadillac for us, then we went to a patio supply place to get the umbrella and table. We picke up the bad polyester yellow jacket and white pants at a sleazy men's shop, where we watched a shoplifter getting caught red-handed and busted. Gary and I were stoned on some dynamite weed and stood there dumbfounded watching the bust unfold. This girl was screaming and kicking! Finally we grabbed a local LA paper to use as a prop. It had this amazing headline: Sen. Buckley Calls For Nixon to Resign. Next we took the palm tree I had taken around the world on the Tonight's the Night tour. We then placed all of these pieces carefully in the sand at Santa Monica beach. Then we shot it. Bob Seidemann was the photographer, the same one who took the famous Blind Faith cover shot of the naked young girl holding the airplane. We used the crazy pattern from the umbrella insides for the inside of the sleeve that held the vinyl recording. That was the creative process at work. We lived for that, Gary and I, and we still do.”

Source: Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Jim Butcher photo
Barack Obama photo

“I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven’t been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife — I didn’t put up for that stuff just to come in second.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

To supporters at a fund-raising party at Jon Bon Jovi's mansion in Duryea, Pennsylvania, (5 September 2008)
"Obama: 'I Don't Believe in Coming in Second'" by Jeff Zeleny (6 September 2008) http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/obama-i-dont-believe-in-coming-in-second/
2008

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Tom Waits photo
Chuck Klosterman photo
George Carlin photo
Tracy Kidder photo

“That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.”

Tracy Kidder (1945) writer

Source: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World

“Like many air travelers, I am aware that airplanes fly aided by capricious fairies and invisible strings.”

J. Maarten Troost (1969) American writer

Source: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

Erica Jong photo

“There are no atheists on turbulent airplanes.”

Source: Fear of Flying

Rick Riordan photo
Rodney Dangerfield photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Henry Ford photo
Wally Lamb photo
Harper Lee photo

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.”

Gladys Bronwyn Stern (1890–1973) British writer

Quoted in Women Know Everything!: 3,241 Quips, Quotes, and Brilliant Remarks By Karen Weekes, p. 41

Bill Gates photo

“Instead of buying airplanes and playing around like some of our competitors, we've rolled almost everything back into the company.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Comment to reporters during the IBM PC launch (1981), interpreted as a jab at Gary Kildall
1980s

Mike Malloy photo

“What about the people that couldn't get out?! Someday it's gonna happen to you, Chertoff! … You won't have a car, and you won't have a government airplane, and you won't have a cell phone, and you won't have a weapon! … Blaming the victim… You filthy pig! You filthy, good-for-nothing Bush Crime Family member! … Oh, these people just make me furious!”

Mike Malloy (1942) American radio broadcaster

http://server7.whiterosesociety.org/content/malloy/MalloyShow-(06-09-2005).mp3
reacting to Michael Chertoff talking about people that couldn't leave New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina.
On Hurricane Katrina

Mitt Romney photo

“Mr. President, you're entitled as a president to your own airplane, and to your own house, but not to your own facts. I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Presidential debate, , * 2012-10-03
2012 presidential debate: President Obama and Mitt Romney’s remarks in Denver on Oct. 3
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/2012-presidential-debate-president-obama-and-mitt-romneys-remarks-in-denver-on-oct-3-running-transcript/2012/10/03/24d6eb6e-0d91-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story_4.html
2012-10-04, viewable at [2012-10-03, Special Programming : Mitt Romney zingers at first presidential debate, CNN, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PvpBLQXEJg, 2012-10-04]
in response to President Obama's assertion, "His running mate, Congressman Ryan, put forward a budget... it wasn't very detailed (this seems to be a trend), but what it did do, if you extrapolated how much money we're talking about, you'd look at cutting the education budget up to 20%."
possibly paraphrasing "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.", attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
2012

Henry Ford photo

“I've never made a flight in an airplane, and I don't know that I'm particularly anxious to. I would, though, like to take a trip in a dirigible. Bring one out here some time, won't you, Doctor Eckener, and give me a ride?”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Raymond J. Brown. " Henry Ford Says, 'There Is Always Room for More' https://books.google.nl/books?id=rCkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA37," in: Popular Science, Vol. 106, nr. 2 (Feb 1925), p. 37

Marlon Brando photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Condoleezza Rice photo

“I don't think that anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile”

Condoleezza Rice (1954) American Republican politician; U.S. Secretary of State; political scientist

Press conference http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-30-questions-usat_x.htm, May 16, 2002.

Bill Maher photo

“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, that's not cowardly. Stupid maybe, but not cowardly.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Politically Incorrect (17 September 2001); this statement created controversies which resulted in this series being cancelled.

Isa Genzken photo

“She [Isa's mother] called up Lufthansa and said, 'I have this daughter, you see, and she needs airplane windows,' she said. That's how she did it.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

Isa Genzken's mother, who was in her 90s, helped her in obtaining a section of jetliner window panels for an artwork Isa wanted to make: a series of cut-out airplane windows
after 2010, No, It Isn't Supposed to Be Easy' (2013)

Aron Ra photo
Daniel James Jr. photo

“Look, friend, I'm really not interested in all of that, really. See I consider myself damned lucky to have been able to land my airplane at this emergency strip in one piece.”

Daniel James Jr. (1920–1978) United States general

As quoted in The Right to Fight: A History of African Americans in The Military (1998), by Gerald Astor, De Capo Press, pp. 440–443

Roger Ebert photo
Abby Sunderland photo

“Against reason, I thought that the next swell would be it: another rogue wave would roll me again... At that moment, a noise from above caught my attention. And I looked up just in time to see a gigantic white airplane fly by.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 176

Louis-ferdinand Céline photo

“And the music came back with the carnival, the music you've heard as far back as you can remember, ever since you were little, that's always playing somewhere, in some corner of the city, in little country towns, wherever poor people go and sit at the end of the week to figure out what's become of them, sometimes here, sometimes there, from season to season, it tinkles and grinds out the tunes that rich people danced to the year before. It's the mechanical music that floats down from the wooden horses, from the cars that aren't cars anymore, from the railways that aren't at all scenic, from the platform under the wrestler who hasn't any muscles and doesn't come from Marseille, from the beardless lady, the magician who's a butter-fingered jerk, the organ that's not made of gold, the shooting gallery with the empty eggs. It's the carnival made to delude the weekend crowd. We go in and drink the beer with no head on it. But under the cardboard trees the stink of the waiter's breath is real. And the change he gives you has several peculiar coins in it, so peculiar that you go on examining them for weeks and weeks and finally, with considerable difficulty, palm them off on some beggar. What do you expect at the carnival? Gotta have what fun you can between hunger and jail, and take things as they come. No sense complaining, we're sitting down aren't we? Which ain't to be sneezed at. I saw the same old Gallery of the Nations, the one Lola caught sight of years and years ago on that avenue in the park of Saint-Cloud. You always see things again at carnivals, they revive the joy of past carnivals. Over the years the crowds must have come back time and again to stroll on the main avenue of the park of Saint-Cloud…taking it easy. The war had been over long ago. And say I wonder if that shooting gallery still belonged to the same owner? Had he come back alive from the war? I take an interest in everything. Those are the same targets, but in addition, they're shooting at airplanes now. Novelty. Progress. Fashion. The wedding was still there, the soldier too, and the town hall with its flag. Plus a few more things to shoot at than before.”

27
Journey to the End of the Night (1932)

Ferdinand Foch photo

“Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Les avions sont des jouets intéressants mais n'ont aucune utilité militaire
Said in 1911 as quoted Time : A Traveler's Guide (1998) by Clifford A. Pickover, p. 249

Glenn Greenwald photo
Aron Ra photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Do people notice Hillary is copying my airplane rallies - she puts the plane behind her like I have been doing from the beginning.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Tweet https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/778237485402980352 (20 September 2016), quoted in "Trump blasts Clinton for 'copying' his airplane rallies" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-blasts-clinton-for-copying-his-airplane-rallies/article/2602310 by Kelly Cohen, Washington Examiner (20 September 2016)
2010s, 2016, September

George W. Bush photo
Bill Engvall photo
Burt Reynolds photo

“My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave.”

Burt Reynolds (1936–2018) American actor, director and producer.

Source: Briton Hadden, ‎Henry Robinson Luce (1972). Time, Vol. 100. p. 43

Alan Keyes photo
Isaac Asimov photo
George W. Bush photo

“I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was obviously on. I used to fly myself and I said, "There's one terrible pilot."”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Quoted in Elisabeth Bumiller (2001-12-05) "A Nation Challenged: The President" New York Times. Colloquial English allows Bush's remark to be interpreted as "I saw that an airplane had hit the tower."
2000s, 2001

Gerrit Benner photo

“Yes ssjjure, it is Fffriesland, seen from an airplane.”

Gerrit Benner (1897–1981) Dutch painter

Jawel, het is Ffffriesland, gezien uit een vliegmasjien.
Quote of Gerrit Benner (early 1950's); as cited in 'Gerrit Benner geboeid door Friese wolkenluchten', Sytse Singelsma http://www.fryslan1.frl/2015/03/04/nieuwe-pagina/, 4 March 2015
Benner's stammering response, when young inhabitants of Leeuwarden criticized him on painting their Friesland as just one simple green surface
1950 - 1980

Steven M. Greer photo

“I was 8 or 9 when I had a sighting of a disk-shaped craft that convinced me that it was certainly not an airplane or anything conventional.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Source: Quoted in: Researcher's Close Encounters Convince Him Of Extraterrestrials The Virginian-Pilot, Roy A. Bahls, http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=VP&p_theme=vp&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAFF84CB5EACDC1&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM (22 March 1995)

Eddie August Schneider photo
Harry Turtledove photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo

“The biggest misfortune in human history is the invention of the combustion engine. Cars and airplanes diminish the world, rob it of all its diversity. Young men who meet me want to know how they could do what I've done. But all they can be is tourists now.”

Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) British explorer

Book Report by David Streitfeld https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1999/06/06/book-report/664d575b-8615-4d17-9275-dd7eb11de8bd/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.213c896c1ac0.  The Washington Post. 6 June 1999.

Alan Keyes photo
Sally Shlaer photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“I wouldn't enter an airplane flown by a quota pilot or accept to be operated by a quota doctor.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Referring to the recent adoption of racial and socioeconomic affirmative action in universities. Interview to the program CQC on Band. Bolsonaro diz na TV que seus filhos não 'correm risco' de namorar negras ou virar gays porque foram 'muito bem educados' https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/bolsonaro-diz-na-tv-que-seus-filhos-nao-correm-risco-de-namorar-negras-ou-virar-gays-porque-foram-muito-bem-educados-2804755; O Globo (29 March 2011).

Ann Coulter photo
John Updike photo
Condoleezza Rice photo
George W. Bush photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“I will propose a Highway Safety Act of 1966 to seek an end to this mounting tragedy. We must also act to prevent the deception of the American consumer—requiring all packages to state clearly and truthfully their contents—all interest and credit charges to be fully revealed—and keeping harmful drugs and cosmetics away from our stores. It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention. We must change to master change. I propose to take steps to modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and state and nation. A new Department of Transportation is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The present structure—35 government agencies, spending $5 billion yearly—makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality. I will propose in addition a program to construct and to flight-test a new supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound—in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. I propose to examine our federal system-the relation between city, state, nation, and the citizens themselves. We need a commission of the most distinguished scholars and men of public affairs to do this job. I will ask them to move on to develop a creative federalism to best use the wonderful diversity of our institutions and our people to solve the problems and to fulfill the dreams of the American people. As the process of election becomes more complex and more costly, we must make it possible for those without personal wealth to enter public life without being obligated to a few large contributors. Therefore, I will submit legislation to revise the present unrealistic restriction on contributions—to prohibit the endless proliferation of committees, bringing local and state committees under the act—to attach strong teeth and severe penalties to the requirement of full disclosure of contributions—and to broaden the participation of the people, through added tax incentives, to stimulate small contributions to the party and to the candidate of their choice.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Brandon Boyd photo
Hal Varian photo
Prem Rawat photo
Donald Rumsfeld photo
Mariano Rajoy photo

“Roads must be used by cars and airplanes must fly in airports.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

16 March, 2016
As President, 2016
Source: La Sexta Noticias http://www.lasexta.com/noticias/nacional/aplastante-logica-rajoy-carreteras-tienen-que-coches-aeropuertos-tienen-que-salir-aviones_2016031600396.html

William L. Shirer photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50 thousand years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward — and so will space.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Rice University speech

Ben Gibbard photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo

“Nothings gonna happen it's simply an airplane.”

Jessica Dubroff (1988–1996) American child pilot trainee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wQ57od6lcY

Jeff Foxworthy photo
Eddie August Schneider photo
Tom Clancy photo
Barry Goldwater photo

“In April 1946, when I came to Hughes Aircraft to institute high-technology research and development, it was far from the place it was to become. Howard Hughes, I was informed, rarely came around. When he did show up, it was to take up one or another trivial issue. He would toss off detailed directions, for instance, on what to do next about a few old airplanes decaying out in the yard or what kind of seat covers to buy for the company-owned Chevrolets, or he would say he wanted some pictures of clouds taken from an airplane. An accountant from Hughes Tool Co. ((started by Howard's father)) had the title of general manager but was there only to sign checks. A few of Howard's flying buddies were on the payroll, using assorted fanciful titles like some in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, but apparently did next to nothing. A lawyer was on hand to process contracts, but there were practically none. In addition to the Spruce Goose flying freighter, a mammoth eight-engine plywood seaplane that barely managed to fly even once, there was an experimental Navy reconnaissance plane under development (which, with Hughes at the controls, later crashed, almost killing him). The contracts for both planes had been canceled. Perhaps, I said to myself, this is one of those unforeseeable lucky opportunities. Why not use Hughes Aircraft as a base to create a new and needed defense electronics supplier?”

Simon Ramo (1913–2016) Father of the ICBM

MEMOIRS OF AN ICBM PIONEER Simon Ramo broke with Howard Hughes, then built TRW, the company that developed the U.S. missile. He says what went right then would go wrong today. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1988/04/25/70453/index.htm in FORTUNE Magazine, April 25, 1988

Bobby Fischer photo

“I was in Japan a couple of months ago, I saw a preview for the movie Pearl Harbor. And they showed the Japanese airplanes coming in to bomb Pearl Harbor, and I applauded. Nobody else in the theater applauded.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, July 6 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_18_3.MP3
2000s

Claude Debussy photo

“Is it not our duty to find the symphonic formula which fits our time, one which progress, daring and modern victory demand? The century of airplanes has a right to its own music.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

As quoted in Music in History : The Evolution of an Art (1957) by Howard Decker McKinney and William Robert Anderson, p. 640
As quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 69
Variant: The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew.

Fernand Léger photo
Charles Lindbergh photo

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

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

"Is Civilization Progress?" in Reader's Digest (July 1964)

Burt Rutan photo
Mitch Albom photo
Stephen King photo

“He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boogie of electricity- Available At Your Nearest Switch plate Or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nerdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too- Shower With A Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who's out there? you howled in the dark when you were all frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don't be afraid, it's just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let's go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation- in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name's Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want- hell, we're old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can't stay, got to see a woman about a breech birth, then I've got a little smoke-inhalation job to do in Omaha.”

Pet Sematary (1983)

Sherman Alexie photo
Neil Patrick Harris photo