RICHARD BACH

Aerodynamics is mathematics for those who haven't learned to do calculus. In my case, too, for one who hasn't learned to add or multiply, at least the first time.

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.

The simplest things are often the truest.

The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.

True love stories never have endings.

Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof.

Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.

Live never to be ashamed if anything you say or do is published around the world, even if what is said is not true.

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!

There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.

It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost.

Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?

I've owned 41 airplanes. A few of them would talk with me. This little seaplane, though, we've had long conversations in flight. There's a spirit in anything, I think, into which we weave our soul. Not many pilots talk about it, but they think about it in the quiet dark of a night flight.

The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.

If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim.

I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me.

If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

I don't want to do business with those who don't make a profit, because they can't give the best service.

Kindle Singles is publishing on skates. It prints like lightning; our book meets readers in hours. I've spent so many years waiting for publishers to consider whether they wanted to print a book of mine, making contracts, taking months to fit it into the Fall list or the Spring list, fitting it into an advertising plan.

If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.