Chesley Sullenberger

“It's amazing what you can learn to get used to.”

“In the bad old days, captains were not good leaders. They didn't build teams; they were arrogant and autocratic.”

“Bigger airplanes, with two aisles instead of one, provide a better experience overall, and I think it's more comfortable.”

“My message going forward is that I want to remind everyone in the aviation industry - especially those who manage aviation companies and those who regulate aviation - that we owe it to our passengers to keep learning how to do it better.”

“My mother was a first-grade teacher, so I credit her with this lifelong intellectual curiosity I have, and love of reading and learning.”

“I had never been so challenged in an airplane that I doubted the outcome.”

“Having a plan enabled us to keep our hope alive. Perhaps in a similar fashion, people who are in their own personal crises - a pink slip, a foreclosure - can be reminded that no matter how dire the circumstance, or how little time you have to deal with it, further action is always possible. There's always a way out of even the tightest spot.”

“Medical professionals are as skilled and as dedicated as any, but they operate within a fragmented system that has not progressed as far as we have in aviation.”

“I went from living my life anonymously for 58 years to being a public figure known globally in a matter of minutes.”

“I'm less shy now than I was as a kid. After Flight 1549, my family and I had to become public figures and more complete versions of ourselves. I had to teach myself to become an effective public speaker.”

“For years, I tried to resist the hero label.”

“My wife Lorrie actually looked in the dictionary to see what the definition was of heroism because it had been used so much. She found at least one definition is someone who chooses to put themselves at risk to save another.”

“Every day we wake up, we have an opportunity to do some good, but there's so much bad that you have to navigate to get to the good.”

“The economic tsunami has hit all airline employees. With the 2001 terror attacks, airline bankruptcies, pension terminations, loss of pay, changes in work rules - we're all working harder and longer than we used to.”

“I took my first flying lesson in 1967, when I was 16. By October 1968, I had 70 hours in the air and got my pilot's license.”

“I try to work out, time permitting, wherever I am.”

“It's almost an out of body experience to see things that First Officer Jeff Skiles and I said in the cockpit together, played by actors.”

“You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.”

“Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it.”

“There's simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.”