“The first duty of a leader is opti­mism. How does your sub­or­di­nate feel after meet­ing with you? Does he feel uplifted? If not, you are not a leader.”

As God once said, and I think rightly.

Air power is indivisible. If you split it up into compartments, you merely pull it to pieces and destroy its greatest asset – its flexibility.

On the eve of this great adventure I send my best wishes to every soldier in the Allied team. To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history; and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings.

Im my profession you have to mystify the enemy.

If we lose the war in the air we lose the war and lose it quickly.

The harder the fighting and the longer the war, the more the infantry, and in fact all the arms, lean on the gunners.

I was well beaten myself, and I am better for it.

Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.

My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.

Let no man surrender so long as he is unwounded and can fight.

Decisions! And a general, a commander in chief who has not got the quality of decision, then he is no good.

A Marine should be sworn to the patient endurance of hardships, like the ancient knights; and it is not the least of these necessary hardships to have to serve with sailors.

Inventing your dream is the first and biggest step toward making it come true.

When I first started coaching, one of the worst things that I think I heard was ‘It will be O.K.’ I would wonder, ‘How the hell is it going to be O.K.?’ The worst word in the English language is ‘hope.’

As best I can tell there was no advance warning of the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, which was the first significant foreign terrorist activity in the U.S. No tip-offs that it was coming.

Getting back on the surfboard after the [shark] attack was the hardest thing and I did it! After that, the hardest thing was my first competition.

French was my first language.

If you make the opportunity. you’ll be the first in the position to take advantage of it.

I was going to do a book about the first prearranged Karpov-Kasparov match, ’84-’85. But the God-damn Jews have stolen my entire file on that.

My first ‘SNL’ episode was with Michael Phelps and Lil Wayne. And if you go back and watch the monologue.