There is no kind of ultimate goal to do something twice as good as anyone else can. It's just to do the job as best you can. If it turns out good, fine. If it doesn't, that's the way it goes.

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

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.

After about 30 minutes I puked all over my airplane. I said to my self, "Man, you made a big mistake."

It's your duty to fly the airplane. If you get killed in it, you don't know anything about it anyway. Duty is paramount. It's that simple if you're a military guy. You don't say 'I'm not going to do that - that's dangerous.' If it's your duty to do it, that's the way it is.

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

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