I ran the astronaut school for six years, and I was the commandant and when I finished in '65, 26 of my guys went into space as NASA astronauts that I trained.

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

Most pilots learn, when they pin on their wings and go out and get in a fighter, especially, that one thing you don't do, you don't believe anything anybody tells you about an airplane.

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.

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

What good does it do to be afraid? It doesn't help anything. You better try and figure out what's happening and correct it.

Everybody that I've ever seen that enjoyed their job was very good at it.