Birdmen Quotes

“The Wright-Curtiss feud persists to the present day as a proxy war—historians of early flight tend to deify one and demonize the other. Either the Wrights were brilliant visionaries and honest toilers attempting ward off the incursions of those, particularly Curtiss, who stole their ideas and even perhaps improved on them, but refused to acknowledge their debt in word or banknote; or Wilbur and Orville were rapacious misanthropes who were all too happy to stop progress in its tracks by stifling brilliant innovators, particularly Curtiss, all to stuff their pockets with more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes.”
― Lawrence Goldstone, Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

“It is not uncommon for the cyclist, in the first flush of enthusiasm which quickly follows the unpleasantness of taming the steel steed, to remark, ‘Wheeling is just like flying!’ This is true in more ways than one.… Both modes of travel are riding upon the air, though in one case a small quantity of air is carried in a bag and in the other the air is unbagged.… To learn to wheel one must learn to balance; to learn to fly one must learn to balance.”
― Lawrence Goldstone, Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

“Wilbur and Orville were rapacious misanthropes who were all too happy to stop progress in its tracks by stifling brilliant innovators, particularly Curtiss, all to stuff their pockets with more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes.”
― Lawrence Goldstone, Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies

“In an unfortunate and unintended preview, newspapers reported that “Commander Saito was enthusiastic over his experience and expressed his faith in the aeroplane for naval purposes in time of war.”
― Lawrence Goldstone, Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies