Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction

There is a sunrise or a sunset from space every 92 minutes so there is an incredible amount of beauty to see from up there.

I guarantee if you walk into 100 spider webs, you will have changed your fundamental human behavior. And you can apply this to anything, And figure out a way to reprogram yourself, to change your primal fear.

The Nile, draining out into the Mediterranean. The bright lights of Cairo announce the opening of the north-flowing river’s delta, with Jerusalem’s answering high beams to the northeast. This 4,258 mile braid of human life, first navigated end-to-end in 2004, is visible in a single glance from space.

Early success is a terrible teacher. You're essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can't do it. You don't know how.

One Chief Astronaut used to make a point of phoning the front desk at the clinic where applicants are sent for medical testing, to find out which ones treated the staff well-and which ones stood out in a bad way. The nurses and clinic staff have seen a whole lot of astronauts over the years, and they know what the wrong stuff looks like. A person with a superiority complex might unwittingly, right there in the waiting room, quash his or her chances of ever going to space.

I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.