Pilot Quotes & Sayings

In 52 percent of crashes, the pilot at the time of the accident has been awake for twelve hours or more, meaning that he is tired and not thinking sharply. — Malcolm Gladwell

Out of the brown mouth into a slanted easterly rain they head south along the shore, pushed toward it on a light chop, all but the pilot huddling under plastic sheeting that covers lumber, nails, window casings and plantains - the women sharing a seat, Reese behind them and the boatman behind him in a narrow-running balance. The land retreats as the dory crosses a wide bight toward the next point, rising and dropping on larger waves while a seaside village of thatch and palm passes thin and blurry in the drizzled distance. Two miles later another village appears, much the same but longer along the curve and then, past the point, the coast is tangled in mangrove, grass and sea grape. The passengers peer out of the plastic at a rain-erased horizon as the dory slices and slows in equal measure and the boatman bails with a cut jug the rolling puddle at his feet. — Michael Jarvis

Whenever you get on the plane, the flight attendant will always tell you the name of your pilot. Like anyone goes, Oh, he's good. — David Spade

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 boot up, activate, and transmit their brains.
Essentially, there's a universe inside your brain. The number of connections possible inside your brain is limitless. And as people have learned to have more managerial and direct creative access to their brains, they have also developed matrices or networks of people that communicate electronically. There are direct brain/computer link-ups. You can just jack yourself in and pilot your brain around in cyberspace-electronic space. — Timothy Leary

I called my pilot 2 weeks before I flew and asked him, I don't want to get sick, what should I eat? He said, Peanut Butter. I said, If I eat peanut butter then I won't get sick? He said, no, but it tastes the same comin' up as it does goin' down. — Bill Engvall

When I go up, especially if I'm paying for a small helicopter and pilot, I'm on. I've got an hour and a half and the clock is ticking and it's costly and I enter into a super-heightened state of mind. — Michael Light

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I've got kids and responsibilities, so I can't be my own test pilot. That wouldn't be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it's a sensible thing to do. — Elon Musk

Some time ago we heard a strange story. The pilot of a small plane said that he had been caught in a one hundred fifty mile gale, which held his plane perfectly still. The motor was roaring, he claimed, but the plane was not moving. "It was weird," he said , "to be going one hundred fifty miles an hour and yet not be going anywhere at all." — James Keller

The most melancholy thing about human nature, is, that a man may guide others into the path of salvation, without walking in it himself; that he may be a pilot, and yet a castaway. — Prince Augustus William Of Prussia

He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. — Joseph Conrad

My pilot's license. I'm proud of that. — Craig Ferguson

the hotel, but the pilot assures me that we can make up the time once we get airborne. — Mark Walden

Your life will fly by, so make sure you're the pilot. — Rob Liano

Owen Zupp is an award-winning writer, published author and commercial pilot with nearly 17,000 hours of flight time. He has flown all manner of machines from antique biplanes to globe-trotting Boeings and shared the journey with readers around the world in a variety of publications. — Owen Zupp

I was a complete unknown when I did 'Karate Kid.' I'd just done a pilot for a TV show called 'Call to Glory.' And I sat down with John Avildsen and brought still pictures from the show. I brought pictures! At that point, I would've been happy to be in a dog-food commercial. — Elisabeth Shue

Any young boy can nowadays explain human flight - mechanistically: " ... and to climb you shove the throttle all the way forward and pull back just a little on the stick ... " One might as well explain music by saying that the further over to the right you hit the piano the higher it will sound. The makings of a flight are not in the levers, wheels, and pedals but in the nervous system of the pilot: physical sensations, bits of textbook, deep-rooted instincts, burnt-child memories of trouble aloft, hangar talk. — Wolfgang Langewiesche

This is the LM pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way. — Buzz Aldrin

Because it flew without a pilot, the D-21 was designed to fly over territory where the U.S. was denied access and to take photographs of weapons facilities from altitudes as low as 1,500 feet. But the project was canceled on July 30, 1966, after a fatal accident at sea during the drone's first official launch. — Annie Jacobsen

That is war. It is the placement of ships. It is the advantages and disadvantages of those placements. It's about how you move, how you fire, what weapons you bring. Every piece fits into the larger whole: ammunition in a blaster, blaster in a pilot's hand, pilot inside a starfighter or frigate. Everything is a resource. How do you expend them? In what direction? At a distance, war is a game, however deadly - usher this ship there, that ship here, converge, fire, dominate, defend. But — Chuck Wendig

The importance of the Beats is twofold: first, they act out a critique of the organized system that everybody in some sense agrees with. But second-and more important in the long run-they are a kind of major pilot study of the use of leisure in an economy of abundance. — Paul Goodman

This is stolen? We're in a stolen jet?"
"Not stolen," said Donegan Bane from the co-pilot's seat.
"Almost stolen," Gracious corrected.
"Semi-stolen," said Donegan.
"Quasi-stolen," said Gracious.
Aurora's frown did not turn upside down. "So is it stolen or not?"
Donegan and Gracious hesitated.
"Yes," they both said together. — Derek Landy

Sometimes I ask myself questions... Sometimes I ask myself, is this your real life or is this just a pilot film? Is my life a thirty-nine week series or is it a special?"
"Whatever it is, your ratings are down... Five cents, please! — Charles M. Schulz

I loved him," Muire said. "We were in love." As if that were enough. — Anita Shreve

I didn't have a lot of ambition, which I think was a good thing. I mean, I was ambitious about quality, but I wasn't ambitious in the "I've got to get a pilot!" way. I never went out to L.A. for pilot season. — Justin Theroux

I did a pilot for Fox years ago called 'Faceless,' with Sean Bean. I always thought it was such a cool show because it was really raw. I thought we were pushing it. This was back at a time before there was the 'cable standard.' — Joe Carnahan

It is wonderful how cheered a pilot becomes after he shoots down his first machine; his morale increases by at least 100 percent. — James Ira Thomas Jones

I market for the same reason a pilot keeps his engines running once he is off the ground. — William Wrigley Jr.

You know, it's scary when you sign onto a pilot of a series because, as much as you want the series to go, you also want it to be a character that you'd be interested in playing for a long time. — Lisa Edelstein

Don't have to see," the pilot grunted. "Olga knows the way."
"Funny name for an aircraft," Grace commented. "Is it after your wife?"
"My gun."
Grace stared at him. "You named your plane after a gun?"
"It was a very good gun. — Gordon Korman

As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things. I was a Walter Mitty type. I wanted to be in the French Foreign Legion, a detective, a doctor, a test pilot with a scarf, a fisherman who hauled in a tremendous marlin after a 12-hour fight. — Jonathan Winters

I have a rule: I want the pilot flying me up in the air at 30,000 feet to make more than a guy working at Taco Bell. — Michael Moore

When I sat down with the creators of the show [Longmire], back when we were first starting to do the pilot, Branch was not that interesting on the page. What really sold me on the show and the character was their vision for him. It took the whole first season to flesh him out. — Bailey Chase

A persistent case of the bingos was enough to wash a man out of night carrier landings. That did not mean you were finished as a Navy pilot. It merely meant that you were finished so far as carrier ops were concerned, which meant that you were finished so far as combat was concerned, which meant you were no longer in the competition, no longer ascending the pyramid, no longer qualified for the company of those with the right stuff. — Tom Wolfe

I shot a pilot for ABC, which I'm a bit confused about what the actual title is - I heard it was called 'Chosen.' It's directed by Roland Emmerich - the master of disaster himself - and it's his idea and concept for the show that's a supernatural thriller about good and evil set in contemporary modern day New York. — Linus Roache

Any problems with your flight? (Acheron) I didn't eat my pilot if that's what you mean. And little Nicky here is still breathing and not bleeding. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I realized that the childish impression I had always had of my father, as Just Lawgiver, was entirely wrong. We were utterly dependent on this man, who was not only deluded and ignorant, but incompetent in every way. What was more, I knew that my mother was incapable of standing up to him. It was like walking into the cockpit of an airplane and finding the pilot and co-pilot passed out drunk in their seats. And standing outside the Lyceum, I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which in fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at twelve, sitting on a bar stool in our sunny little kitchen in Plano. Who is in control here? I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane? — Donna Tartt

A writer who can't follow submission guidelines is like a pilot without a plane ... ain't gonna get very far! — Jo Linsdell

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description. — Barry Goldwater

I was a pilot flying an airplane and it just so happened that, where I was flying, made what I was doing spying. — Francis Gary Powers

I had done 'Die Hard' and it was somebody's franchise. I actually just got done with the 'Hawaii Five-O' pilot and I was developing some things of my own. So 'Total Recall' one of those projects that I read wanting more not to like it. — Len Wiseman

Behind me, a teddy bear was resting on the shoulder of a corpse. A lemon candle stood below the branches. The pilot's soul was in my arms. — Markus Zusak

My father was never the Pilot, but he was one of the people standing in line. — Ally Condie

Find an emotional tether. Someone you trusted before and someone you can trust now. A person who can connect you to your past but can pilot you into the future. Someone who can pull you back from the ledge when you find it and from the dark when it finds you. Find that person, hold on tight, and don't let go. — Nicole Williams

I once met an RAF pilot who told me of what he called a "bird strike". This, rather unfairly in my view, made it sound as if it was the bird's fault; as if the little feathered chap had deliberately tried to head-butt twenty tons of metal travelling in the opposite direction at just under the speed of sound, out of spite. — Hugh Laurie

Corridor. Cress screamed and collapsed onto the ground. "Jacin, we are about to have company," said Sybil, ignoring Cress's sobs. "Separate yourself from this satellite, but stay close enough to have good visual without drawing suspicion. When an Earthen ship draws close, they will likely release one podship - wait until the pilot has boarded this satellite and then rejoin us using the opposite — Marissa Meyer

When you talk about raising that debt limit, the only way that I would ever support raising the debt limit if we also talk about budgetary controls on the federal government, capping its spending, how do we deal with the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid problems, because they cannot continue to run on auto-pilot. — Allen West

I did a pilot for Anything But Love in 1988 that didn't sell. — Kathryn Bigelow

Still is just the right way to be. You rise in the morning to go about your day. You remember a friend who has troubles. You don't quibble with yourself about whether to call her; you don't write a reminder on your Palm Pilot or in your planner to make the call tomorrow. You just call. Simple. — C. Terry Warner

We have to pilot our own dreams - we cannot entrust them to anyone else. — John C. Maxwell

I remember, when we started 'Leverage,' we were all in Chicago, and I read the script for the pilot and thought, 'Boy, this is just a real interesting place to begin a character.' I had to figure out how to go about playing someone who had hit rock bottom. — Timothy Hutton

As a physician and as a pilot, I think it lets me be a pretty good translator having one foot in the medical world and one foot in the flying world. Sometimes when the medical guys come in and speak medical stuff to the pilots, the pilots really don't know what they're saying. — David M. Brown

Crossing the Bar
"Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."
Lord Tennyson — Ally Condie

But she could never forget that she was a tiny pilot in a several-thousand-pound weapon. — Maggie Stiefvater

The moment when you find out when you shoot the pilot - getting the pilot is a small victory. You shoot the pilot, and when you get picked up, that's a huge victory right there. — Kevin Dillon

It's always interesting for me to watch the pilot of an established show because you see how the writers and actors weren't really sure what the show was and what the dynamics were. If you look at the pilot for 'Seinfeld,' for example, it's practically unrecognizable. — Johnny Galecki

The plane touches down on very rough ground: its wheelbarrow wheels bounce and one set of wings rises alarmingly while the other dips. Now the Masai and the plane are converging. It's a magnificent shot: the Masai run, run, run, run; because of the optics it is dreamlike. The little plane bounces, shudders, slews and finally makes lasting contact with the ground. At exactly the right moment, as the plane comes to a halt, the Masai warriors, in a highly agitated state, reach the plane, and the camera closes on the pilot, whose face as he removes his leather flying helmet and goggles, appears just above the bobbing red ochre composition of plaited hair and fat-shone bodies. It is Mel Gibson, with a grave expression, which can't quite suppress his unruly Aussieness. — Justin Cartwright

I did do an American pilot, but it wasn't shot in America, it was shot in South Africa. It was called 'The Philanthropist,' and it was for NBC. — Dominique McElligott

Pilots have their names painted just beneath the canopy of their aircraft. This gives the pilot a sense of ownership for his or her jet. What's more, like cars, each aircraft has its own personality, so it's important for a pilot to get to know and love his aircraft. — Simon Sinek

I did some commercials and a couple of B movies, then a few pilots that didn't go anywhere. Eventually I did the pilot for Beverly Hills, 90210. The rest is history. — Brian Austin Green

You were supposed to be my wingman, not my freaking kamikaze pilot. — Katelin LaMontagne

Turbulence: This is what pilots announce that you have encountered when your plane strikes an object in midair. You'll be flying along, and there will be an enormous, shuddering WHUMP, and clearly the plane has rammed into an airborne object at least the size of a water buffalo, and the pilot will say, "Folks, we're encountering a little turbulence." Meanwhile they are up there in the cockpit trying desperately to clean water buffalo organs off the windshield. — Dave Barry

The funny thing is that making a pilot is sort of an audition, at least for me. There's something psychological there, where you're sort of asking for the job while you're acting. And then when it's been picked up, it's a completely different psychological dynamic. — Justin Kirk

I had done one failed pilot. I remember, when it failed, I was like, 'Oh my God, how does someone survive this? That's it - that's the end of my career; it's over.' — John Krasinski

You had to come back to learn how to lose yourself, to be pilot and stray-witch, Hansel and Gretel in one. — Seamus Heaney

In terms of the pilot, you have to introduce a lot of characters in a very short period of time, and you have to paint with slightly broad brush strokes because you just need to give an audience an idea of who these people might be. — Jack Davenport

And so the landing party set out, leaving Weatherlight in the hands of an inexperienced pilot, a cowering lookout, and a pacifist guard. — Peter Archer

In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It's really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think. — Dennis Quaid

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag. — William H. Macy

The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a stunt pilot's turning barrel rolls, or an inchworm's blind rearing from a stem in search of a route. At its worst, it feels like alligator wrestling, at the level of the sentence. — Annie Dillard

If hush'd the loud whirlwind that ruffled the deep, The sky if no longer dark tempests deform; When our perils are past shall our gratitude sleep? No! Here's to the pilot that weather'd the storm! — George Canning

There was nothing subtle about our landing. The pilot just pointed the nose at the ground and let her rip. — Bob Hope

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to. — Harry Reasoner

I am not only overwhelmed with excitement to be back in the seat but also to show my support to help raise awareness to end domestic violence and sexual assault by displaying the 'No More' symbol as I pilot the No. 24 car. — Amber Cope

Now, tomorrow Miss Laurie McCrae and me, we have an appointment with a sky pilot who will make it proper for us to travel in double harness. — Louis L'Amour

The task of the mediator is to help the parties to open difficult issues and nudge them forward in the peace process. The mediator's role combines those of a ship's pilot, consulting medical doctor, midwife and teacher. — Martti Ahtisaari

I was on the set of the first Powers pilot, and an actor of color came up to me and said, "When I was a kid, my friends wouldn't let me play Batman or Superman, because I wasn't their color. But they would let me play Spider-Man. And that's the difference." And I realized I had heard this story a hundred times from different people, but I wasn't there in my head yet. — Brian Michael Bendis

I believe in God. I got down on my knees and I said, 'I get it. If this isn't for me, then it isn't for me.' And then a week later, I started working. I worked on 'The Following,' I worked on 'Elementary,' I worked on a pilot and then I got 'Orange.' So literally from that moment of deep surrender, that's when you're blessed. — Selenis Leyva

I think I was about 16 when I first figured I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a fighter pilot before that, but then I thought I don't want to kill people so that ruled that out. — Max Irons

We're gonna play a little bit of a game here [Person of Interest movie]. Greg and I felt like we had responsibility when we wrapped up the pilot, to have a roadmap for where the show went. When we pitched the pilot, we knew what we wanted the last episode to be, the last image, I think we even know what the last song is. — Jonathan Nolan

I intend to be the greatest golfer in the world, the finest film producer in Hollywood, the greatest pilot in the world, and the richest man in the world. — Howard Hughes

I created 'Dinner: Impossible' with a guy named Bryan O'Reilly and I shot the pilot as a 30 minute show and we sold it. — Robert Irvine

I directed 24's pilot. I felt we should follow the characters around as if we were a documentary crew, using available light, hand-held cameras, split screens, sound that isn't always what it should be, to suit the reality of the premise. — Stephen Hopkins

I enjoy the writing process and producing; I enjoy seeing an idea come to fruition. I'm driven by very complex characters. You look at the pilot of 'Breaking Bad,' where there's so much depth to the character, you can't help but be invested when you watch. — Sasha Roiz

If you go to pilot then you are probably going to go to series. That's my feeling about it. — Gabriel Macht

I believe that 99 percent of successful TV shows change an immense amount from the pilot to the tenth or twelfth episode. — Bill Lawrence

Death is the handmaiden of the pilot. Sometimes it comes by accident, sometimes by an act of God. — Albert Scott Crossfield

I was born in Georgia. That's where my grandparents-and all my people-are from. But my family traveled a great deal because my dad was in the army as a helicopter pilot. — Michael Stipe

Costumes are fun. Dress up like a pilot some night and watch as people stare! — Tim Heidecker

My very first job was something called 'Nobody's Watching,' that Bill Lawrence who created 'Scrubs,' it was his pilot. It was my very first TV job, and it was a sitcom. Ever since that experience, I've been so itching to get back to that kind of environment and just to be involved with comedy. — Mircea Monroe

Mohammed al-Qahtani was not alleged to be a leader of the Sept. 11 plot. He was not trained as a pilot. If he was involved, he was one of the 'muscle' hijackers. — Bill Dedman

The contradictions within Pakistan became still more apparent at my next event, a luncheon hosted in my honor by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and attended by several dozen accomplished women in Pakistan. It was like being rocketed forward several centuries in time. Among these women were academics and activists, as well as a pilot, a singer, a banker and a police deputy superintendent. They had their own ambitions and careers, and, of course, we were all guests of Pakistan's elected female leader. Benazir — Hillary Rodham Clinton

I've got funny things. David Duchovny had to have a cast made of his face to do an old person's make-up, and I've got that cast of his face in my house. I've got something from the pilot, the original implant that was in Billy Miles' head. I've got a sign from 'The Erlenmeyer Flask.' But my house isn't a museum to 'The X-Files!' — Chris Carter

Like, to do a pilot, you don't know what's going to happen with it. — Jenna Elfman

Sloth is the failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done - like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions. — John Ortberg

Beauty is the pilot of the young soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We did one pilot for FOX which was about this couple that moves to a town, and we play everyone in the entire town. So it was like a Peter Sellers film. — Thomas Lennon

This creature's career could produce but one result, and it speedily followed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister's son became an engineer. The doctor's and the post-master's sons became 'mud clerks;' the wholesale liquor dealer's son became a barkeeper on a boat; four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge, became pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary - from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay. Two months of his wages would pay a preacher's salary for a year. Now some of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river - at least our parents would not let us. — Mark Twain

Wanting to be a screenwriter is like wanting to be a co-pilot. — Marshall Brickman

No, he probably wouldn't mention it - except to another flier. Then they will talk for hours. They will re-create all the things seen and felt in that wonderful world of air: the sense of remoteness from the busy world below, the feeling of intense brotherhood formed with those who man the radio ranges and control towers and weather stations that bring the pilot home, the clouds and the colors, the surge of the wind on their wings. — Percy Knauth

Finally I had made that necessary imaginative leap - which is a real necessity, since most of us writers can't be out there living like crazy all the time. These days, very few are the writers whose book jackets list things like bush pilot, big game hunter, or exotic dancer. No, more often we are English teachers. We have children, we have mortgages, we have bills to pay. So we have to stop writing strictly about what we know, which is what they always told us to do in creative writing classes. Instead, we have to write about what we can learn, and what we can imagine, and thus we come to experience that great pleasure Anne Tyler noted when somebody asked her why she writes, and she answered, I write because I want more than one life. — Lee Smith