All theological lore is growing distasteful to me. All my recent excursions into such fields proves it to be a shifting, hypothetical, doubt-fostering, dusty, and unprofitable study.

I find purer philosophy in a Poem than in a Conclusion of Geometry, a chemical analysis, or a physical law.

Flying is the only active profession I would ever continue with enthusiasm after the War.

Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose.

It's always disappointing to come across phony do-gooders. And it's easy to scoff at celebrities working in war zones.

I'd never say I wouldn't fight a war. In different ages, I would have done. I'd have fought the Vikings.

For people who grew up hunting, especially war veterans, shooting often settled the mind. It was something that required full concentration, and therefore took you away from your troubles, at least for a short time.

I was a sailor. I was torpedoed, spent two weeks in a lifeboat. I was on the Murmansk run; I worked a 20 mm. machine gun, helped bring down a Stuka, all that kind of stuff. I've got letters from Franklin Roosevelt for things I did then. But those kind of credentials didn't work for you in the Cold War.