Ernest Gann Quotes

#1. Faraday is, and must always remain, the father of that enlarged science of electromagnetism.

James Clerk Maxwell

#2. It is the professional pilot's bounden duty to know the idiosyncrasies of each type (of airplane), for he must spend a large proportion of his active career exploiting its qualities and compensating for its faults. These secrets cannot be discovered in a ground school.

Ernest K. Gann

#3. It doesn't look nearly as big as it did the first time I saw one. Mickey McGuire and I used to sit hour after hour in the cockpit of the one that American used for training, at the company school in Chicago, saying to each other, 'My God, do you think we'll ever learn to fly anything this big?'

Ernest K. Gann

#4. The precise metaphysical procedures by which a book goes about writing another book need not concern us here. Suffice to say that our human scribes remain entirely ignorant of their possession by bibliographic forces; the agent in question never doubts that his authorship is authentic.

James K. Morrow

#5. The only characteristic all airliners share is that upon proper urging they are normally capable of leaving the earth's surface.

Ernest K. Gann

#6. I started out as a lousy actress and have remained one.

Brigitte Bardot

#7. Electronics were rascals, and they lay awake nights trying to find some way to screw you during the day. You could not reason with them. They had a brain and intestines, but no heart.

Ernest K. Gann

#8. There are two kinds of airplanes - those you fly and those that fly you ... You must have a distinct understanding at the very start as to who is the boss.

Ernest K. Gann

#9. A stood for altimeter. It told how high a man flew. B stood for boost. It told the power in the engines. C stood for compass. It told in which direction a man was proceeding. It was delightfully simple.

Ernest K. Gann

#10. I never see problems. I always see challenges. By definition, a problem is something unwelcome or harmful, whereas a challenge is a contest. Contests can be won; and, I love winning.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

#11. It's when things are going just right that you'd better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it.

Ernest K. Gann

#12. Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are victims to the spell. Their world is like a magic island in which the factors of life and death assume their proper values. Thinking becomes clear because there are no earthly foibles or embellishments to confuse it.

Ernest K. Gann

#13. I want a boat that drinks 6, eats 4, and sleeps 2.

Ernest K. Gann

#14. I had this notion that everyone was staring at me and judging everything about me, from my appearance to the way I talk and everything.

Ricky Williams

#15. The drivers here are horrible. And by horrible, I mean they don't realize I have someplace to be.

Maria Semple

#16. Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time.

Ernest K. Gann

#17. There is no more alluring airspace in the world than the slit up a China girl's dress.

Ernest K. Gann

#18. My mind held fast to that hot morning and the moment of coolness in the cabin. I could so easily re-enact every moment. Again-why had I gone back to exchange the beautiful charts at that precise moment? How many times would I, in whatever innocence, be compelled to choose the right time?

Ernest K. Gann

#19. The men in this book are fictitious characters but their counterparts can be found in cockpits all over the world. Now they are flying a war. Tomorrow they will be flying a peace, for, regardless of the world's condition, flying is their life.

Ernest K. Gann

#20. The emergencies you train for almost never happen. It's the one you can't train for that kills you.

Ernest K. Gann

#21. You're good, did you know that?'

Oh, yes.

Emma Bull

#22. You can call me a fat, balding, talentless old queen who can't sing, but you can't tell lies about me.

Elton John

#23. Civil disobedience is an act of love.

Tim DeChristopher

#24. I am drawn to the new chart with all of its colorful intricacies as a gourmet must anticipate the details of a feast ... I shall keep them forever. As stunning exciting proof that a proper mixture of science and art is not only possible but a blessed union.

Ernest K. Gann

#25. For me, playing music is like meditating - I just play and don't really think about what I'm doing, I just let it happen.

Rick Wright

#26. Rule books are paper - they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal.

Ernest K. Gann

#27. We lived in and out of our flight bags, they being our true and only home. Thus, if we were not actually flying or sleeping, we were often lonely and at a loss to occupy ourselves.

Ernest K. Gann

#28. It's remarkable how quickly a good and favorable wind can sweep away the maddening frustrations of shore living.

Ernest K. Gann

#29. Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.

Ernest K. Gann

#30. ...I stand looking at the aircraft, trying in vain to remember all the theoretical lore which i was supposed to have absorbed in school. The effort is discouraging.

Ernest K. Gann

#31. In referance to flying through thunderstorms; "A pilot may earn his full pay for that year in less than two minutes. At the time of incident he would gladly return the entire amount for the privilege of being elsewhere.

Ernest K. Gann

#32. Because every urge but survival had been reduced to nothing, they had become a mutual will, like that which caused whole peoples to unite in desperation.

Ernest K. Gann

#33. MaCleod, since you've flown the SeaBee a lot you'll understand when I say it was the only airplane I ever owned that you could put in a dive, loose a cylinder and stall out!

Ernest K. Gann