A Guy Named Joe (1943)

Lionel Barrymore: The General

Quotes 

• The General : No man is really dead unless he breaks faith with the future, and no man is really alive unless he accepts his responsibility to it.

• The General : I've been studying your record.

  Pete Sandidge : Oh, it isn't much.

  The General : Well, I agree with you about that. You can fly fairly well if you obey orders.

  Pete Sandidge : "Fairly well"? Why, I do things with a plane the designer didn't even think of.

  The General : That's just the point, Sandidge. We work here on the general lines of trying to do things with the plane the designer did think of.

• The General : You're not under the impression that you learned to fly all by yourself, are you?

  Pete Sandidge : Well, if I didn't, sir, I'd like to know who helped me.

  The General : Well, I guess I can tell you that. You were helped by every man since the beginning of time who dreamt of wearing wings, by pioneers who flew pieces of wire and paste board long before you were born, by every pilot that ever crashed into the ground in order that others could stay up in the sky.

• The General : If you've heard it, you'll remember it. It's the music a man's spirit sings to his heart when the earth's far away and there isn't any more fear. It's the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earthbound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future and caught just for an instant the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.

• The General : Free as the air. Men have said that ever since they've crawled out of caves and came down from trees. That's what we're fighting for, the freedom of the very air we breathe, the freedom of mankind rushing to greet the future on wings. Can you understand that? Can you?