You're going very fast when you're on orbit, going around the world once every hour and a half.

Looking down at the Earth, you started to pick up a sense of speed much more than I had noticed on orbit.

We were only on orbit a little over two days so we had no adverse effects from being weightless...

We were on the dark side of the Earth when we started to see outside the window this soft pink glow, which is a lot of little angry ions out there going very fast. We were hitting them very fast.

I was selected to be an astronaut on a military program called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory back in '67 and that program got cancelled in '69 and NASA ended up taking half of us...

The nature of the shuttle was, we couldn't put a crew escape system in it.

Having the opportunity to fly the first flight of something like a space shuttle was the ultimate test flight.

Living inside the shuttle was a little like camping out. We ended up sleeping in our seats. You had to pay attention to housekeeping, not get things too dirty.

The real pleasure was having the chance to enjoy being weightless, and the other was to... spend some time looking out at this beautiful spaceship Earth that we're all lucky to inhabit.

When you work really hard for something for a long time it's almost impossible to believe that it's coming true.

Selection of crews is always been somewhat of a mystery.

To reproduce your life is to convert it into tangible products for the benefit of humanity. To reproduce your life is to impact the world with it.

Bridges take people across rivers. Leaders take people across ignorance. With a leader, the destination of a journey is sure.

What could a fool be thinking but further foolishness?

We are finding new areas in the ocean every day. It's as alien as going to outer space.

I hate dealing with the press. But I think it is a necessary evil.

And when a strong man is sweet, even Goddesses look down from Mount Olympus.

President O[bama] talks the talk and then walks a completely different walk. I would call him the divider-in-chief.

I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.

My sense is, as governor I've gotten a lot of stuff done.

Our idea is that a state is strong when the people are politically conscious. It is strong when the people know everything, can form an opinion of everything, and do everything consciously.