I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership in the world, to explore, to seek knowledge.

To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.

Here I am at the turn of the millennium and I'm still the last man to have walked on the moon, somewhat disappointing. It says more about what we have not done than about what we have done.

Am I willing to go to Mars? Yes, but I'm not willing to spend nine months getting there, then wait 18 more months until the planets align to come home.

Today, we are on a path of decay. We are seeing the book close on five decades of accomplishment as the leader in human space exploration.

We found out the Gemini spacesuit was, well, oxygen was flowing to keep me cool as well as to breathe, and it wasn't good enough. My visor got fogged.

I think I know the delights of freedom

A short poem from my book:PerspectiveOf coursethere is a hellshe saidand it hasan observation deck

True creativity is characterized by a succession of acts each dependent on the one before and suggesting the one after.

A mother's got to be there to raise the children. That's all there is to it. I feel badly for those mothers who work hard, and can't do it all the time.

I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.

Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

Less isn't more; just enough is more.

Even the most introverted person alive is constantly hungry for human association