Cockpit Confidential Quotes

“One National Geographic survey revealed that 85 percent of Americans between ages eighteen and twenty-four were unable to locate either Afghanistan or Iraq on a map. Sixty-nine percent couldn’t find Great Britain,”
― Patrick Smith, Cockpit Confidential

“Progress, one way or the other, mandates that the extraordinary become the ordinary.”
― Patrick Smith, Cockpit Confidential

“The heavens had become an immense, quivering, horizon-wide curtain of fluorescence, like God’s laundry flapping in the night sky.”
― Patrick Smith, Cockpit Confidential

“The lowest common denominator of brand identity is something I call the ‘Generic Meaningless Swoosh Thing,’” says Amanda Collier, a graphic design veteran. According to Collier, “The GMST is what happens when any corporation tries to develop a new look. The managers will talk about wanting something that shows their company is ‘forward thinking’ and ‘in motion,’ and no fewer than three of them will reference Nike, inventors of the original Swoosh. The creative types smile, nod, secretly stab themselves with their X-Acto knives.”
― Patrick Smith, Cockpit Confidential

“What’s that now? Later, when your meal arrived, the tray included conjoined packets of salt and pepper, upon which was written:   The color of snow, The taste of tears, The enormity of oceans.”
― Patrick Smith, Cockpit Confidential