- Lindsay: Runway One-Three? Thirteen. Ominous...
- Air Marshal Hardie: Naval types seem to thrive on superstition.
- Owen Robertson: You realise that every detail has come true and that only one remains and that that one will come true, sure as fate, unless you stop it now.
- Air Marshal Hardie: I shall do what I consider right.
- Owen Robertson: Then you'll be the only lucky one because you won't be alive to know the appalling thing you've done.
- Air Marshal Hardie: If a pilot gets the conviction that he isn't going to survive, gradually the strain turns it into an obsession. Then one day a crisis comes along, something maybe that he could get out of without much difficulty but he says to himself "this is it". He accepts the inevitable and goes down without any attempt to survive. That's why we don't talk about omens or bad dreams in the Air Force. They're the worst poison a flying man can swallow.
- Bennett: You're sure it is Japan? From what I've seen of your flying methods it could be China, or Blackpool for that matter.