Height--aeronautical altitude--is like sudden wealth. It buys detachment and new perspective, with some beautiful lies thrown into the bargain. Solo flight in a small plane is an excellent way of leaving behind one's lesser thoughts and one's smaller ideas. A dreary stretch of fallow farmland, from the air; a chill and brutish mile of city slum, from a plane window: in a grand sweep, these become positively magnificent sights.

--Walker Evans