 Taking off with an open book balanced on his leg, his ground crew would fear his mission would quickly end after contacting something 'very hard'.On one flight, to the chagrin of colleagues awaiting his arrival, he circled the Tunis airport for an hour so that he could finish reading a novel.Saint-Exupéry frequently flew with a lined "carnet" (notebook) during his long, solo flights, and some of his philosophical writings were created during such periods when he could reflect on the world below him, becoming 'enmeshed in a search for ideals which he translated into fable and parable'."