"I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it"
About this Quote
"Taste" does even more work. It’s sensory and immediate, a word you use for appetite, not duty. Glenn positions flight as a craving that clicks instantly, the way some people discover speed, stage lights, or the ocean and realize they’ll spend the rest of their lives chasing that first hit. That’s the subtext: the astronaut myth isn’t built on cold heroism alone; it’s built on compulsion, on people wired to move toward the edge.
In context, Glenn’s generation grew up with aviation as the century’s new romance and its new proving ground. He came up through military flying, where exhilaration and survival shared the same cockpit. By the time NASA needed test pilots who could tolerate uncertainty and sell the public on the future, Glenn’s kind of enthusiasm wasn’t incidental - it was infrastructure. The quote quietly argues that exploration isn’t primarily a civic assignment. It’s an addiction with good PR, one that turns personal thrill into national narrative.
Quote Details
| Topic | Adventure |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Glenn, John. (2026, January 15). I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-sold-on-flying-as-soon-as-i-had-a-taste-for-173475/
Chicago Style
Glenn, John. "I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-sold-on-flying-as-soon-as-i-had-a-taste-for-173475/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-sold-on-flying-as-soon-as-i-had-a-taste-for-173475/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.








