"We have come a long way from a time when people gazed enviously upon the birds in-flight. Today, we look upon our planet from afar, and feel a new tenderness for the tiny and fragile Earth. For we know now, that even as we walk upon the ground, we are ever in-flight through the universe. And so, we begin to realize that human destiny has ever been, and always must be, to fly!"

"In our new way West, we will fly in a few hours, over landscapes the pioneers labored months and years to cross."

"[After ascending] It's magnificence! I wish you can all see it from here!"

"[After showing the first form of aviation, hot-air-balloons] But America is still the domain of the horizontal, and speaks a language of vast distances. To conquer [it], we begin to think of space not as miles of forests and prairie to be crossed, but as time between places. Days. Hours. Minutes. We ally ourselves to speed."

"This development of mobility and rapid transport has no parallel in all human history. And the telescoping of time has changed forever, the patterns of our imagination."

"Here on July 4th, in the Year of Our Lord 1831, I am about to take a flight above the ground and earth and into the silent sky!"

"The traditional community testified to human limits, and its boundaries were in the world of the horizontal. But these swarming clusters of metal and glass seemed monuments to the idea of the vertical. They pushed the sky, as if to uproot themselves and take flight. We can truly see these cities only with that other eye we opened Wright Flyer|not so long ago."

"[Before ascending, Ezekiel reads a poem to his small crowd]"

"Once, the shining sea of the West was limits and boundary. Now, lands-end, there's no longer the end of the line."

"We first flew in dreams, and the dream of flying has become real. We have extended our limits and seen our world from a new angle, in a way that once would've seemed godlike."

"The land and sky in motion, nature at its best, its biggest, its most unforgettable. (LaserDisc back cover)"

"Watch the Earth drop beneath you (2016 40th-anniversary revision)"

"Officious overdressed brass hat! Orders, orders. Thinks the 59th can't do it, eh? Well, the 59th can do anything he can think up! It's a slaughterhouse, that's what it is, and I'm the executioner!"

"Edmund Breon — Lieutenant Phipps"

"William Janney — Gordon Scott"

"Gardner James — Ralph Hollister"

"Neil Hamilton — Major Brand"

"Frank McHugh — Flaherty"

"Clyde Cook — Bott"

"Douglas Fairbanks Jr. — Douglas Scott"

"Hell Breaks in the Skies!"

"Greatest Air Epic Ever!"

"James Finlayson — Field Sergeant"

"Richard Barthelmess — Dick Courtney"

"Katie Couric — herself"

"Michael Rapaport — Pete the Bartender"

"Jeff Kober — L. T. Cook"

"Max Adler — Jimmy Stefanik"

"Sam Huntington — Jeff Kolodjay"