Night Flight

In every crowd are certain persons who seem just like the rest, yet they bear amazing messages.

Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life.

We do not pray for immortality, but only not to see our acts and all things stripped suddenly of all their meaning; for then it is the utter emptiness of everything reveals itself.

If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!

No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.

She knew this man's smile, his gentle ways of love, but not his godlike fury in the storm. She might snare him in a fragile net of music, love and flowers, but, at each departure, he would break forth without, it seemed to her, the least regret.

Action and personal happiness have no truck with each other; they are eternally at war.

A single radio post still heard him. The only link between him and the world was a wave of music, a minor modulation. Not a lament, no cry, yet purest of sounds that ever spoke despair.

Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.

It's hard luck always having to be a judge.

The villages were lighting up, constellations that greeted each other across the dusk. And, at the touch of his finger, his flying-lights flashed back a greeting to them. The earth grew spangled with light signals as each house lit its star, searching the vastness of the night as a lighthouse sweeps the sea. Now every place that sheltered human life was sparkling. And it rejoiced him to enter into this one night with a measured slowness, as into an anchorage.

I am especially grateful to him for bringing out a paradoxical truth which seems to me of great psychological import; that man’s happiness lies not in freedom but in his acceptance of a duty.

In a flash, the very instant he had risen clear, the pilot found a peace that passed his understanding. Not a ripple tilted the plane but, like a ship that has crossed the bar, it moved across a tranquil anchorage. In an unknown and secret corner of the sky it floated, as in a harbor of the Happy Isles. Below him still the storm was fashioning another world, thridded with squalls and cloudbursts and lightnings, but turning to the stars a face of crystal snow.

Then, as tonight, he had felt lonely, but soon had learnt the bounty of such loneliness. The music had breathed to him its message, to him alone amongst these ordinary folk, whispered its gentle secret. And now the star. Across the shoulders of these people a voice was speaking to him in a tongue that he alone could understand".

One nation is weakened by a victory, another finds new forces in defeat

It is a matter of life and death for us; for the lead we gain by day on ships and railways is lost each night.

Victory ... defeat ... these words are meaningless. Life lies deeper than these images, and is already at work, preparing new ones.

Already Buenos Aires was dyeing the horizon with pink fires, soon to flaunt its diadem of jewels, like some fairy hoard.

Now all grew luminous, his hands, his clothes, the wings, and Fabien thought that he was in a limbo of strange magic; for the light did not come down from the stars but welled up from below, from all that snowy whiteness.

Robineau le tira de sa solitude : 'Monsieur le Directeur, j’ai pensé… on pourrait peut-être essayer…' Il n’avait rien à proposer, mais témoignait ainsi de sa bonne volonté. Il aurait tant aimé trouver une solution, et la cherchait un peu comme celle d’un rébus. Il trouvait toujours des solutions que Rivière n’écoutait jamais : 'Voyez-vous, Robineau, dans la vie, il n’y a pas de solutions. Il y a des forces en marche : il faut les créer et les solutions suivent.' Aussi Robineau bornait-il son rôle à créer une force en marche dans la corporation des mécaniciens. Une humble force en marche, qui préservait de la rouille les moyeux d’hélice. Mais les événements de cette nuit-ci trouvaient Robineau désarmé. Son titre d’inspecteur n’avait aucun pouvoir sur les orages, ni sur un équipage fantôme, qui vraiment ne se débattait plus pour une prime d’exactitude, mais pour échapper à une seule sanction, qui annulait celles de Robineau, la mort. Et Robineau, maintenant inutile, errait dans les bureaux, sans emploi.

Whatever happens I am with you.

He dreamt an instant of retreat and its guerdon of a hundred thousand stars, but did not shift his course by one degree.

Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.

Pilot je provjerio sve brojke, jednu za drugom, i bio zadovoljan. Otkrivao je da je siguran na nebu. Prstom je dotaknuo čelični prag, i osjetio kako kovinom struji život; metal nije titrao, već živio. Vrlo blago strujanje rađalo se iz petsto konjskih snaga motora, i pretvaralo njegovu ledenu tvrdoću u baršunasto meso.

Za pilota ova je noć bila bez obala, jer nije vodila ni prema luci (sve su se činile nedostižnima), ni prema zori; benzina će ponestati za sat i četrdeset. Prije ili kasnije, bit će primorani naslijepo utonuti u onu tminu. Kad bi bar mogao izdržati do zore... Fabien je mislio na zoru kao na kakav zlaćani pješčani žal, gdje bi se nasukali nakon ove teške noći. Pod zrakoplovom u opasnosti rodila bi se obala ravnica. Mirna bi zemlja nosila svoja usnula domaćinstva, stada i obronke. Sve olupine što su se valjale u sjeni postale bi bezazlene. Da je mogao, kako bi samo zaplivao prema jutru! Pomisli da je opkoljen. Sve će se svršiti, dobro ili loše, u ovoj gluhoj noći.