Stephen Coonts Quotations

She said, 'You know they just might have read 'Under Siege' down there,' ... 'I don't want any phone calls from the State Department that you're locked in some jail cell down there.'

I think there's a lesson there for all story-tellers. It's the same human themes and values from Day One. They're still exactly the same. You just play with them in different settings, change them around to entertain the audience today.

I think every good story deserves to be told twice,

When I got into it I realized that it needed Jake Grafton to give it an American center of focus that wouldn't be there without a strong American hero,

It's just people from various walks of life in Cuba and what might happen to them

That's all it's meant to be, ... This is not a literary fiction. This is page-turning fiction that you take to the beach and read for diversion. If I do that, I've done my job.

I had already done a two-chapter subplot on the second Cuban revolution in the book 'Under Siege' in 1990,

I am alive. Up here with the song of the engine and the air whispering on my face as the sunlight and shadows play upon the banking, wheeling wings, I am completely, vibrantly alive. With the stick in my right hand, the throttle in my left, and the rudder beneath my feet, I can savor that essence from which life is made.

It's the most exciting thing you have ever done with your pants on!

With the stick in my right hand, the throttle in my left, and the rudder beneath my feet, I can savor that essence from which life is made.

Writers shouldn't fall in love with their characters so much that they lose sight of what they're trying to accomplish. The idea is to write a whole story, a whole book. A writer has to be able to look at that story and see whether or not a character works, whether or not a character needs further definition.

Flight is romance - not in the sense of sexual attraction, but as an experience that enriches life.

A little mountain will kill you just as dead as a big one if you fly into it.

Airplanes are like women - pick what you like and try to get it away from the guy who has it, then dress it out to the limit of your wallet and taste.

The most crucial thing is to learn the craft: how to string sentences together, how to make your dialogue sound like real people, how to properly pace a story, how to develop interesting characters.

Flying is like sex - I've never had all I wanted but occasionally I've had all I could stand.

The hard, inescapable reality is that anyone who flies may die in an airplane.

Here you are truly separate from the earth, at least for a little while, removed from the cares and concerns that occupy you on the ground.

This thing we call luck is merely professionalism and attention to detail, it's your awareness of everything that is going on around you, it's how well you know and understand your aircraft and your own limitations. Luck is the sum total of your of abilities as an aviator. If you think your luck is running low, you'd better get busy & make some more. Work harder, pay more attention. Do better preflights.

The irony of the information age is that it lends credibility to uninformed opinion.

All really great flying adventures begin at dawn.

Mistakes are inevitable in aviation, especially when one is still learning new things. The trick is to not make the mistake that will kill you.

Here above the farms and ranches of the Great Plains aviation lives up to the promise that inspired dreamers through the ages. Here you are truly separate from the earth, at least for a little while, removed from the cares and concerns that occupy you on the ground. This separation from the earth is more than symbolic, more than a physical removal-it has an emotional dimension as tangible as the wood, fabric, and steel that has transported you aloft.