“I am by nature superstitious… On my last exercise in England I had the good fortune to pick up a four-leafed clover. Superstition is a very funny thing and I am never quite sure how deep it runs. All I do know is that there is so much in life that is without apparent reason, so much so that is so completely unforeseeable, so much that just baffles reason, that I do not laugh at little superstitious fads.”
– Lieut. General Richard Gale, 6th Airborne Division, D-Day, WWII.

“Lift is made when the air pressure under a wing is greater than the air pressure over the wing. Then the wing gets pushed upward. That’s how birds fly. That’s how kites fly… That’s how airplanes fly. But people need lift, too. People don’t get moving, they don’t soar, they don’t achieve great heights, without something buoying them up.”
– Elizabeth Wein, “Rose Under Fire”

“He often said he’d died in the war, just for a moment; that his soul had left his body like a silk handkerchief, slipping out and levitating over his chest. It had returned without being called back, and I often wondered if writing for him was a way of knowing his soul was there after all, back in its place.”
–Paula McLain, “The Paris Wife”