50 Quotes About Flying to Spread Your Wings

By Clifton Sankofa

School Leader, Language Arts Expert & Master Quote Curator

Published August 20, 2023

Set your sights on the sky with our quotes about flying.

Flying is the ability to move through the air with wings.

Earth has a variety of beings who can achieve flight, including human beings.

Learn how planes actually work with our flying quotes.

Airplanes use four forces to fly

The four forces are:

Lift
Drag
Thurst
Gravity

A flying aircraft relies on the four forces above.

The opposing forces balance one another.

Life equals gravity, and thrust equals drag.

The thrust is the force that moves a plane forward in the air; the propellor or engine creates thrust.

Drag is the air resistance that slows the forward movement of the plane.

Gravity is the force that pulls objects down to Earth.

Life is the upward force created by the movement of the air on top and below the wing.

We take flight for granted

They say you don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to your elderly grandmother or a three-year-old.

Flying is something millions of people do every day.

However, how do planes fly?

We live in a time when many components of our lives are taken for granted.

Most of us need help understanding where our electricity comes from, where our garbage goes, or how a plane can fly.

So, how do planes fly?

Airplanes have had their design refined over the years we have been flying.

However, certain aspects of flight remain the same.

Airplane wings are aerodynamic, meaning they are shaped to make air move faster over the top of the wing.

When air moves faster, the pressure of the air decreases.

The key to flight is ensuring the pressure on top of the wing is less than the pressure on the bottom.

The difference in pressure creates the force on the wing that lifts it into the air.

To learn more, check out our flying quotes below.

Short quotes about flying for letting go of what weighs you down

We begin with these short quotes about flying.

1. “I’m afraid of flying.” — Allison Janney

2. “I think getting drunk is the key to flying comfortably.” — Amanda Peet

3. “Resolutions are flying like snowflakes around here.” — Arlen Specter

4. “The good thing about flying solo is it’s never boring.” — Steve Fossett

5. “I don’t have a fear of flying; I have a fear of crashing.” — Billy Bob Thornton

6. “Flying is hypnotic, and all pilots are willing victims to the spell.” — Ernest K Gann

7. “Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” — Douglas Adams

8. “You wanna fly, you got to give up the stuff that weighs you down.” — Toni Morrison

9. “I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.” — Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

10. “The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm.” — Alexander Woollcott

The best quotes about flying for spreading your wings

Birds provide us with all the motivation we need to fly.

11. “My soul is in the sky.” — William Shakespeare

12. “Flying was a very tangible freedom.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

13. “On wings of wind came flying all abroad.” — Alexander Pope

14. “For humans, flying isn’t magic; it’s physics.” — Alan Alda

15. “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.” — Alejandro Jodorowsky

16. “Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” — Frida Kahlo

17. “I quit flying years ago. I don’t want to die with tourists.” — Billy Bob Thornton

18. “Flying might not be all smooth sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.” — Amelia Earhart

19. “Flying is hours and hours of boredom sprinkled with a few seconds of sheer terror.” — Pappy Boyington

20. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” — J. M. Barrie

The top flying quotes for seeing the world

Planes allowed humanity to see the world in an instant.

21. “Man is flying too fast for a world that is round.” — James Thurber

22. “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” — Langston Hughes

23. “If God had really intended men to fly, he’d have made it easier to get to the airport.” — George Winters

24. “I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, but I was sure of it that night.” — Amelia Earhart

25. “The way I see it, you can either work for a living or you can fly airplanes. Me, I’d rather fly.” — Len Morgan

26. “Once you have learned to fly your plane, it is far less fatiguing to fly than it is to drive a car.” — William T. Piper

27. “There is no conclusive proof of Unidentified Flying Objects flying over India-China border.” — A. K. Antony

28. “There is an art, or rather a knack, to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” — Douglas Adams

29. “Learning to fly an airplane taught me a way of thinking, an approach to problem-solving that was applicable and effective.” — Chris Carter

30. “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Famous quotes about flying from world-class pilots

These quotes come from some of the best pilots and flight enthusiasts out there.

31. “Sometimes, flying feels too God-like to be attained by man.” — Charles A. Lindbergh

32. “There’s a lot of us out here that are birds, man. We all need to just fly.” — Travis Scott

33. “Every flyer who ventures across oceans to distant lands is a potential explorer.” — Jean Batten

34. “It is only when you are flying above it that you realize how incredible the earth really is.” — Philippe Perrin

35. “We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.” — Luciano De Crescenzo

36. “Same with anyone who’s been flying for years and loves it still, we’re part of a world we deeply love.” — Richard Bach

37. “What we want is clothing we think we can fly in. That’s why I opened the show with flying dresses.” — Alber Elbaz

38. “Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset?” — Jack Handey

39. “I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.” — Andrea Gibson

40. “Every time I fly and am forced to remove my shoes. I’m grateful Richard Reid is not known as the Underwear Bomber.” — Douglas Manuel

Quotes and sayings about flying to live by

We close our list with these flying quotes about life.

41. “Whenever I dream about flying, it’s the best feeling in the world.” — Kate M

42. “The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors.” — Wilbur Wright

43. “The more bullets flying, the less accurate each individual slug has to be.” — Andrew Vachss

44. “I work best when there is adversity: I seem to get calmer the more the fur is flying.” — Andrea Arnold

45. “I hate flying. Know why? Because no one really understands how planes actually work.” — Adam Levine

46. “I have to say that flying on Air Force One sort of spoils you for coach on a regular airline.” — Ronald Reagan

47. “A home cook who relies too much on a recipe is sort of like a pilot who reads the plane’s instruction manual while flying.” — Alton Brown

48. “Fear paralyzes you: fear of flying, fear of the future, fear of leaving a rubbish marriage, fear of public speaking, or whatever it is.” — Annie Lennox

49. “When the machines are being thrashed to capacity, and the pilots are flying at their limits to dazzle, things are bound to go wrong sometimes.” — Alex James

50. “It is strongest in those of us who fly and is responsible for an unconscious, subtle desire to slip into some wings and try for the elusive boundaries of our origin.” — K.O. Eckland