"It occurred to Gulliver that the older he gets, the more he prefers to sit in the aisle seat. And this thought saddened him. The window seat is for those who retain a sense of adventure about travel. It is for those who, no matter how many times they may have flown, hold on to a sense of wonderment as they hurtle down the runway and watch the ground disappear beneath them; for those who cherish that sense of excitement as they descend, nose against the pane, into the blinking lights of a never-before-visited city; whose hearts leap as they stare out across an ocean and spy a lonely atoll. That, after all, is why five-year-olds insist on sitting there. The aisle seat, in contrast, is for those who value utility. It is the seat in which it is easiest to stretch your legs; to get up and wander to the toilet. It is the position for those who like to grab their bags from the locker and beat the queue off the plane. [..] Life in the air can make wizened cynics of us."