Home > Author > Ernest K. Gann
1 " 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 , Fate Is the Hunter
2 " You are supposed to know how to fly or you would not be here. You will now learn to fly all over again. Our way. I have examined your logbooks. They contain some interesting and clever lies. If you are lucky and work a good solid eighteen hours a day in this school, it is barely possible that a few of you may succeed in actually going out on the line-that is, if the company is still in such desperate need of pilots that it will hire anybody who wears his wings in his lapel and walks slowly past the front door. "
― Ernest K. Gann
3 " The only characteristic all airliners share is that upon proper urging they are normally capable of leaving the earth's surface. "
4 " 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. "
5 " 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. "
6 " Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps. "
7 " ...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. "
8 " Alle Frauen sind im Grunde ihres Herzens Huren, erklärte er immer und immer wieder, wobei er seine traurigen, großen Augen rieb. "
― Ernest K. Gann , Soldier of Fortune
9 " Those ever more frequent nights when his loneliness became unbearable and he took solace in wine he would sometimes stand outside his tent holding his cup toward the great mass as if it lived and was then only slumbering beneath the stars. Drunk and bemused at its enormous dimensions he would mumble words at it, reaching out as if he could touch it. “Hail, you sleeping elephant—what would happen if you farted? Roll over, mighty carbuncle on the face of the earth, and dump the Jews in the sea of salt. I will live to crown you, Masada, with a wreath of my urine. "
― Ernest K. Gann , Masada
10 " As the years go by, he returns to this invisible world rather than to earth for peace and solace. There also he finds a profound enchantment, although he can seldom describe it. He can discuss it with others of his kind, and because they too know and feel its power they understand. But his attempts to communicate his feelings to his wife or other earthly confidants invariably end in failure. Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing 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. Professional pilots are, of necessity, uncomplicated, simple men. Their thinking must remain straightforward, or they die—violently. "
― Ernest K. Gann , Island in the Sky
11 " I sit far back in my seat, my right foot braced comfortably against the instrument panel, listening to the steady thrumming of the engines, content to reflect that I have at least come a long way since my barnstorming days. Not so long ago, in a rock-fenced field nearby, a young man named Blauvelt stepped away from a sputtering biplane and first sent me into the sky alone. "
12 " 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. "
13 " 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. "
14 " 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. "
15 " When he climbed into the Penelope or any other airplane, the same change always came over him and the character of the change was so strong that even Stutz himself was aware of it. He exchanged his earthly freedom of thinking for what had to be a series of disciplined facts. To absorb and segregate these facts, all in their right and proper order, was his duty, a$ it was of any professional pilot. Not only was it his duty but it was his sole defense against dependency on luck, and although he was aware of the power of luck, it was indicative that Stutz never considered it as a means to an end as long as he was flying. "
16 " Es gibt ja keine verrücktere Idee, behauptete Tweedie weiter, als zu glauben, es gebe zwei Kategorien von Frauen: anständige und unanständige. "
17 " I am not deliberately avoiding your question, General, only seeking a true answer. You ask if I am educated. Who knows what an edudated man is? My brain has been enriched with the logic of Aristotle, yet I know not how to milk a goat. I am acquaintanted with the science of Euclid, yet I cannot find a well or sail a vessel. I am familiar with Platonic philosophy, but I cannot build anything durable. Obviously I am an ignorant man. "
18 " Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell.”-- Ernest K. Gann "
