Basically, being alive means keeping yourself ready for the sky to fall in on you at any time. If you start from the assumption that existence is only an ordeal, a test we have to pass, then you’re equipped to deal with its sorrows and its surprise...
I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engineer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an air pilot. I don't tell people I can get you across the ocean with my ship unless I know wh...
Growing up, I always had a soldier mentality. As a kid I wanted to be a soldier, a fighter pilot, a covert agent, professions that require a great deal of bravery and risk and putting oneself in grave danger in order to complete the mission. Even tho...
[last lines] Narrator: The Mercury program was over. Four years later, astronaut Gus Grissom was killed, along with astronauts White and Chaffee, when fire swept through their Apollo capsule. But on that glorious day in May 1963, Gordo Cooper went hi...
Trudy Cooper: [about being the wife of a test pilot] I went back east to a reunion and all my friends could talk about their husband's work. How "dog-eat-dog" and cutthroat it was on Madison Ave. Places like that. [under her breath] Trudy Cooper: Cut...
Charles Muntz: [Muntz notices that Russell is hanging by Carl's garden hose high in the air. He speaks into his intercom] Gray leader? Take down the house. Russell: [still hanging on the hose] AAAAh! [he sees three planes drop out of the blimp] Russe...
Jack: What's going on? We have a right to know the truth! Rumack: [to the passengers] All right, I'm going to level with you all. But what's most important now is that you remain calm. There is no reason to panic. [Rumack's nose grows an inch long] R...
Appreciation involves being alert to the positive aspects of the current situation and feeling thankful for what one has and for one's circumstances. This requires not only a positive perspective in the present but also conscious awareness of feature...
Han Solo: Well, look at you! A General, huh? Lando Calrissian: Someone must have told them all about my little maneuver at the battle of Taanab. Han Solo: Well, don't look at me, pal. I just said you were a fair pilot. I didn't know they were looking...
Captain Colton: We are receiving a message from the Chancellor's office, sir. Senator Bail Organa: Send it through. Captain Colton: Yes, sir. [the pilot pushes some buttons and Mas Amedda appears on screen] Mas Amedda: Senator Organa... the Supreme C...
Darth Vader: [zeroing in on Luke's fighter] I have you now! [one of Vader's wing-men explodes] Darth Vader: What? Han Solo: YAHOOO! [the Millenium Falcon appears] Tie Fighter pilot: Look out! [Han fires again, the second fighter collides with Vader's...
Professor Fitz: Well, the cumulonimbus formations about which you speak that look like... Howard Hughes: Giant breasts full of milk. I want clouds, damn it. Professor Fitz: Yes, clouds that look like giant breasts full of milk, cannot exactly be guar...
The question that remains unanswered and keeps coming to the fore is ‘Are the punishment schemes for child sex and sexual abuse deterrent in nature? Amidst ongoing debates in most countries about capital punishment as human rights violation to be i...
He turned the entire living room into an airport, complete with a four-foot-high LEGO traffic control tower and a fleet of paper planes, plastic army pilots taped safely into their cockpits. From deep beneath the couch, a large utility flashlight ill...
We piled aboard the small chopper and after a bit of map pointing to the pilot we lifted off. "I love the RAF," said Jed. "I love them too, sir," said I. After a short flight the chopper landed. We all got out and waved our thanks and farewells to th...
I want to do what little I can to make my country truly free, to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people, to destroy the prejudices born of ignorance and fear, to do away with the blind worship of the ignoble past, with the idea that all the g...
Post-adolescent Expert Syndrome The tendency of young people around the age of eighteen, males especially, to become altruistic experts on everything, a state of mind required by nature to ensure warriors who are willing to die with pleasure on the b...
[Lily and Zefram had a few too much to drink at a bar] Lily Sloane: You're going to regret this tomorrow. Dr. Zefram Cochrane: One of the things you should have learned about me by now is that I don't have regrets. [leaving the bar, Cochrane pulls Li...
The level of intelligence has been tremendously increased, because people are thinking and communicating in terms of screens, and not in lettered books. Much of the real action is taking place in what is called cyberspace. People have learned how to ...
Every now and then, a small plane arrives from nowhere – as tiny as the head of a match-stick – it flies around my head, buzzing, like a pesky little fly, then disappears into my ear. Later, it lands on my throbbing heart. Excited tourists get ou...
She paused and saw him tense in expectation. He wouldn’t like to hear this, but better from her than one of the others. “You aren’t the only pilot I have in my service. And you aren’t the only person with a dark past, though the illegal thing...
