From: Terminal Luminal by Meir Ariel

"When I got discharged,
 the doctors prescribed me
 a monthly visit to the airport terminal.
 It really does me good -
 scoping a large aircraft,
 soaring through

a pellucid tear."

From: The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carré

"I fly between the cow's legs, okay? In the war we have little landing strips up there, crazy listening places in the middle of badlands. I flew those places, Voltaire. I know them. I find one right at the top of a mountain, you can reach it only from the air. I take a look, I see the fuel dump, I land, I refuel, I take a sleep, it's crazy. But Jesus, Voltaire, it's not Yunnan province, okay?"

From: Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"But night was rising like a tawny smoke and already the valleys were brimming over with it. No longer were they distinguishable from the plains. The villages were lighting up, constellations that greeted each other across the dusk. And, at a 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."

From: Homo Faber by Max Frisch

"We were coming in to land exactly as though there was an airstrip underneath us; I pressed my face to the window, you never see the runway till the last minute, when the brake-flaps are already out.
I was surprised that the brake-flaps didn't appear. Our plane was obviously avoiding any curve so as not to lose height and we flew on over the flat inviting plain; our shadow moved closer and closer to us, flying faster than we, so it seemed, a gray rag on the reddish sand, flapping.
Then rocks.
We rose again."

From: The Hand of Mary Constable by Paul Gallico

"With the sunrise the big B.O.A.C. jet came pouring out of the east to fly down the white, surf-fringed beaches of Long Island and pick up in the morning haze the glorious towers of Manhattan, a million windows reflecting the fire of the orange sun....Before entering the approach path to Idlewild the pilot flew over the city, lining up with the silver of the river to give his passangers the treat of the great metropolis bathed in morning light...The airecraft banked and turned east once more, towards a vast plain of less impressive city blocks beyond which lay the sea and the glide path to the airport. Hero craned around for one more breathtaking, eye-filling glimps of the magic of Manhattan."