Amelia Earhart

"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release From little things: Knows not the livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear The sound of wings."

"Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."

"How can Life grant us boon of living, compensate For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate Unless we dare The souls dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay With courage to behold the restless day, And count it fair."

"In soloing—as in other activities—it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it. Almost every beginner hops off with a whoop of joy, though he is likely to end his flight with something akin to the D.T.s."

"I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly."

"The time to worry is three months before a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard. It retards reactions, makes one unfit. . . . Hamlet would have been a bad aviator. He worried too much."

"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be ones appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship."

"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."

"Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization."

"Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture."

"In my life I had come to realize that when things were going very well indeed it was just the time to anticipate trouble. And, conversely, I learned from pleasant experience that at the most despairing crisis, when all looked sour beyond words, some delightful "break" was apt to lurk just around the corner."

"Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others."