Harry Reasoner Quotes

Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle.

For humans, flying isn't magic, it's physics.

It's not like there's a law against flying." "Yes there is. The law of gravity.

In order to fly, all one must do is simply miss the ground.

… to seek employment as a designer of large aircraft.

It's much like playing jazz, flying. It's multitasking in real time. You have a number of instruments that alone won't tell you exactly what the airplane is doing but together give you a picture of everything that's going on.

The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.

I have had the feeling that a properly constructed flying-machine should be capable of being flown as a kite; and conversely, that a properly constructed kite should be capable of use as a flying-machine when driven by its own propellers.

I live for that exhilarating moment when I'm in an airplane rushing down the runway and pull on the stick and feel lift under its wings. It's a magical feeling to climb toward the heavens, seeing objects and people on the ground grow smaller and more insignificant. You have left that world beneath you. You are inside the sky.

My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home.

I was interested in flying beginning at age 7, when a close family friend took me in his little airplane. And I remember looking at the wheel of the airplane as we rolled down the runway, because I wanted to remember the exact moment that I first went flying... the other thing growing up is that I was always interested in science.

The law of flying was not discovered by the contemplation of things staying on the ground.

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

To speak of this subject you must... explain the nature of the resistance of the air, in the second the anatomy of the bird and its wings, in the third the method of working the wings in their various movements, in the fourth the power of the wings and the tail when the wings are not being moved and when the wind is favourable to serve as guide in various movements.

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.

All flight is based upon producing air pressure, all flight energy consists in overcoming air pressure.

....a perfect paper airplane.

He that can swim needs not despair to fly; to swim is to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a subtler. We are only to proportion our power of resistance to the different density of matter through which we are to pass. You will be necessarily upborne by the air if you can renew any impulse upon it faster than the air can recede from the pressure.

In the case of an airplane, speed is determined by the outcome of the conflict between thrust of the power and drag of the plane. So it also is with humans.

I can't afford the luxury of music while I'm flying an airplane. I have to pay attention to what I'm doing.

I showed it is possible to fly a little bit like a bird.

You always want to walk a tight-rope of flavor

I'd love to fly. I think that'd be cool.

We can't hear the balance yet because the soloist is still on the airplane.

I guess ... I'm going to get that ice cream sundae they give you on the airplane. I usually pass on that, but I think I'm actually going to get extra whipped cream and maybe even the chocolate syrup. I'm really winging it here. I'm going to be flying. It's really a little too early to start drinking.