Richard Bach Quotes

In a lot of ways knowledge kills fear. Once you know who the boogie man is, once you know what's under the bed, it can still be frightening but that fear of the unknown is gone.

Still, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they will die. They do not see that it is death itself that motivates them to do the best things in their lives. They are afraid to step into the dark, afraid of the unknown, and their only way of conquering that fear is to ignore the fact that their days are numbered. They do not see that with an awareness of death, they would be able to be even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then they would have nothing to lose- for death itself is inevitable.

I love flying; I love aircraft, and you could say I've had a love affair with flight since I was a child. I travel a huge amount. I use airports, and as a pilot, I've flown in and out of airports thousands of times, so really, I have a fairly broad perspective.

We have so much pride in welcoming these passengers onto the plane, and they have so much pride in travel. It's something that I definitely always remember, when I'm playing a scene on the plane, just to imbue everything with that sense of excitement.

I started flying because I had a fear of it early on. I figured if I learned to fly, I would understand better what was happening and started taking lessons in the late 1950's, once I had made some money on tour.

I do not fear anybody on the field or in society, but I fear at night when I am away from my parents. I am scared of the unknown described in horror movies.

My great fear has always been complete and utter failure. Hence, you see, all the dispossessed people in my fiction, and why I try to earn as much money as I can. It's a defense. I don't enjoy it or do anything with it.

People are afraid of things they don't understand. They don't know how to relate. It threatens their security, their existence, their career, image.

Whenever we're afraid, it's because we don't know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.

Whether I'm at the hangar or at the airport or on an airplane, I get respect. And that's the best part of my day.

I learned to fly an airplane, and had my own airplane during the 1960s.

The guy in the airplane goes with you. So he has self-interest to do the good things, too, and I don't know of any pilots that don't have a self-interest in staying alive.

I've actually had a copilot come out of the cockpit on a trip from L.A. to New York and ask me about Charles Manson.

When you're a kid, you have this feeling like you're indestructible. Your mortality doesn't even occur to you. But as time goes by, you realize, 'I better cut this out or that out if I want to continue to exist.'

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

My ears are huge. If there's ever a problem with a plane I'm on, they could just put me on the wing and I'll land the sucker.

I did want to be a pilot. I wanted to be a military pilot because I liked airplanes. I was interested in modeling airplanes.

We were flying on a winged vehicle that would do reentry different than we had ever done before. So all of those were firsts. Test pilots truly love firsts.

Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known.

I like normal stuff people fear - like spiders and heights. I'm frightened by the unknown, by things that are hard to figure out and get a grip on.

I took a Fear of Flying class, and I always missed the class, because I was always flying.

To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything.

Growing up, I wanted to be a pilot!

No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.

Every once in a while, we'd ask my dad if we could get a ride in one of these planes. And, he did take us to the flying club and get us a ride in the Pushpak and a glider that the flying club had.