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.

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.

I have no regrets about my life. People ask, "If you had to do it all over again, would you do it differently?" No. That's speculation.

Rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own.

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

If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.

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