Selected Amelia Earhart Quotations
• About her first airplane ride: As soon as we left the ground, I knew I had to fly.
• Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.
• After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. 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 reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the esthetic appeal of flying.
• Adventure is worthwhile in itself.
• The most effective way to do it, is to do it.
• I want to do something useful in the world.
• Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others. [Last letter to her husband before her last flight.]
• Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats. But, they also get more notoriety when they crash.
• The effect of having other interests beyond those domestic works well. The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
• The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.
• One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren't routine, often don't get a fair break.... It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs which produced the corollary that women are bred to timidity.
• After all, times are changing and women need the critical stimulus of competition outside the home. A girl must nowaways believe completely in herself as an individual. She must realize at the outset that a woman must do the same job better than a man to get as much credit for it. She must be aware of the various discriminations, both legal and traditional, against women in the business world.
• ... now and then women should do for themselves what men have already done -- occasionally what men have not done -- thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of thought and action. Some such consideration was a contributing reason for my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do.
• My ambition is to have this wonderful gift produce practical results for the future of commercial flying and for the women who may want to fly tomorrow's planes.
• In soloing -- as in other activities -- it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.
• The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
• Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.
• Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done.
• Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.
• There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls.
• Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible.
• Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.
• Amelia is a grand person for such a trip. She is the only woman flyer I would care to make such an expedition with. Because in addition to being a fine companion and pilot, she can take hardship as well as a man -- and work like one. (Fred Noonan, Amelia's navigator for the around-the-world flight)
