It wasn't that the X-1 would kill you, it was the systems in the X-1 that would kill you.

The best pilots fly more than the others; that's why they're the best.

Later, I realized that the mission had to end in a let-down because the real barrier wasn't in the sky but in our knowledge and experience of supersonic flight.

Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.

The secret of my success is that I always managed to live to fly another day.

The one word you use in military flying is duty. It's your duty. You have no control over outcome, no control over pick-and-choose. It's duty.

There's no such thing as a natural-born pilot.