GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
AMELIA EARHART

Women should realize that really any woman who can drive a motorcar can learn to pilot an airplane.

Amelia Earhart

New York Hails Amelia Earhart as ‘Lady Lindy’, Christian Science Monitor, 6 July 1928.

For someone who’s crazy about being in the air, dying down on the ground is something of an abdication.

Maryse Bastié

French aviator who set several international records for female aviators during the 1930s. She did die in an airplane crash, 6 July 1952, as a passenger during a prototype aircraft flight after an accident on takeoff. In original French, « Pour une folle d’aviation, mourir à terre a quelque chose d’une abdication. » Quoted in the 2013 book Women Aviators: From Amelia Earhart to Sally Ride, Making History in Air and Space.

Women must try to do things as men have tried, When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others.

Amelia Earhart

In The New York Times, 29 July 1928.

The moment I saw the planes in flight and heard the rhythmic whirr of their motors, I felt the call of the air.

Amila Earhart

Quoted in Amelia Earhart Answers the Call of Fate, Illustrated Love Magazine, January 1932.

Aviation, this young modern giant, exemplifies the possible relationships of women with the creations of science.

Amelia Earhart

Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, 1935.

I didn’t know a lot about Amelia before I started [flying]. And as a woman and a pilot, I should have known more.

Linda Finch

Prior to starting out on a flight retracing Amelia Earhart last journey, 1997.

Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.

Amelia Earhart

20 Hrs 40 Mins, 1928.

And the day is coming when we can fold up the wings of our planes upon landing and taxi up the street to our garages.

Amelia Earhart

Christian Science Monitor newspaper, 16 January 1936.

Flying is so much more than just a quick way to traverse space. It’s freedom and color and form and style. I am at home in the air.

Amelia Earhart

A Bird’s-Eye View of Fashions, Christian Science Monitor newspaper, 7 February 1934.

Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash.

Amelia Earhart

Quoted by her husband in his 1939 book Soaring Wings: A Biography of Amelia Earhart.

I have flown above and below and through other seas of clouds. And ever I find this new world aloft worth the great price of its conquest.

Amelia Earhart

Cosmopolitan magazine, August 1932.

I think we may safely anticipate that there will be floating airdromes strung across the Atlantic when [transatlantic] service is started.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart Says Cheap Airplanes Are Near, Boston Daily Globe newspaper, 7 March 1935.

As flying enters into everyday life, the dreams of centuries become actualities. One by one they take shape and become stepping-stones for other dreams.

Amelia Earhart

Fly America First, Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan, October 1929. It‘s a practical pro-aviation piece about American air travel and aviation infrastructure. The quotation appears near the end of a continuation page, after Earhart says she has tried to confine herself to facts and before she speculates about future air travel.

My contributions to aviation have proved very little from a scientific standpoint. I have only proved that a woman can accomplish just as much as a man.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart, Conqueror of Pacific, Talks Transportation with Akron Women, Akron Beacon newspaper, 14 February 1935.

The time to worry is three months before a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard.

Amelia Earhart

Last Flight, 1937.

The lure of flying is the lure of beauty. The dramas of the clouds, the glory of the stars, the charm of landscapes and the wonders of the waters and skies have, to me, an irresistible appeal

Amelia Earhart

Quoted in Two Ocean Hops Traced, Los Angeles Times newspaper, 31 March 1935.

I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system and I hope this trip is it. Anyway when I have finished this job, I mean to give up long-distance stunt flying.

Amelia Earhart

Departing from Los Angeles, California, for Florida on 21 May 1937. Start of her last flight.

Please know I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others.

Amelia Earhart

In a letter left for her husband to open in case she failed on her round-the-world flight. Last Flight, 1937.

I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reasons flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the esthetic appeal of flying.

Amelia Earhart

Last Flight, 1937. Quoted as the opening epigraph in Russell Munson's 1989 book Skyward: Why Flyers Fly.

So I accept these awards on behalf of the cake bakers and all of those other women who can do some things quite as important, if not more important, than flying, as well as in the name of women flying today.

Amelia Earhart

Speech accepting the Outstanding American Woman of the year award, 14 October 1932. There was a plaque and a chamois purse with $1,000 in gold. Her comments came after an article in the French press praising her skills ended with the query:

“… but can she bake cakes?”