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

All that I am ... I owe to the Air Force.

Just before you break through the sound barrier, the cockpit shakes the most.

In 1966, NASA took over in space, and it has been a bureaucratic mess ever since.

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

Leveling off at 42,000 feet, I had thirty percent of my fuel, so I turned on rocket chamber three and immediately reached .96 Mach. I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride. Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach - then tipped right off the scale ... We were flying supersonic. And it was a smooth as a baby's bottom; Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade.

I don't think about life everlasting. If something doesn't have scientific evidence to back it up, I don't believe it. I'm a straight shooter.