Night Flight Quotes

“In every crowd are certain persons who seem just like the rest, yet they bear amazing messages.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“If a composer suffers from loss of sleep and his sleeplessness induces him to turn out masterpieces, what a profitable loss it is!”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Action and personal happiness have no truck with each other; they are eternally at war.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Heavy clouds were putting out the stars”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“It's hard luck always having to be a judge.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Si la vie humaine n'a pas de prix, nous agissons toujours comme si quelque chose dépassait, en valeur, la vie humaine... Mais quoi ? (p. 130)”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Nós não pedimos para ser eternos, mas apenas para não ver os atos e as coisas perderem subitamente o seu sentido. O vazio que nos rodeia faz-se então sentir...”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Một chiến thắng làm suy yếu một dân tộc này, một chiến bại làm thức tỉnh một dân tộc khác.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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".”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“One nation is weakened by a victory, another finds new forces in defeat”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Victory ... defeat ... these words are meaningless. Life lies deeper than these images, and is already at work, preparing new ones.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Already Buenos Aires was dyeing the horizon with pink fires, soon to flaunt its diadem of jewels, like some fairy hoard.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Whatever happens I am with you.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“He dreamt an instant of retreat and its guerdon of a hundred thousand stars, but did not shift his course by one degree.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“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.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight

“Mogao se još boriti, iskušavati sreću - nema izvanjske kobi. Ali, postoji nutarnji usud - dođe vrijeme kad otkrijemo da smo ranjivi; tada nas pogreške privlače poput vrtoglavice.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Night Flight