When you're a little different than others, it takes a little more time to fit in. If you really want to be there, there are no ingredients you need other than effort, perseverance and teamwork.

You're always under the microscope, and you don't know which mission you're going to get. It's a surprise.

A lot of people, I think, would love to see the earth from above, wear a spacesuit. Certainly, when I was a kid, I wanted to wear a spacesuit.

Most people here don't have a wide emotional range. It's just the type of people astronauts are, they're required to be level.

Definitely you don't become famous by doing something bad; that's a professional death sentence.

Some people will always be volunteers to explore, and it is, in my mind, a privilege.

I'm 45, and I'm still at school, essentially. Even after being assigned to the mission, I had to write a number of exams, with people commenting on my performance.

Nobody is going anywhere in 10 years.

On the day a country decides not to invest a cent in innovation, discovery or exploration, that country decides to be a tributary to others.

The opportunities to become an astronaut in Canada were far and few.

I am definitely a little more nervous for my colleagues when I'm working at mission control than I am myself, on the shuttle.

The most delightful advantage of being bald - one can hear snowflakes.

If the legends fall silent, who will teach the children of our ways?

The possibilities for mobilizing the experience, imaginations, and intelligence of workers, both employed and unemployed, are limitless.

Cubans joke and satirize everything that life gives them, and I think that's a positive characteristic.

The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.

As a civilian during the Second War, I was exposed to danger in circumstances which removed any distinction between the man in and the man out of uniform.

I don't hear any clear, coherent message [from Democrats]. I mean, when you're a party out of power, it's the time to be a national party chair.

I treat business a bit like a computer game. I count money as points. I'm doing really well: making lots of money and lots of points.

I'm obsessed with being human.

There is very much in the world that is bad. But usually the attempt to defeat evil engenders more evil. I advise you to do good; that is the only way to win the victory.