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.

As we went through mach one, the nose started dropping, so we just cranked that horizontal stabilizer down to keep the nose up. We got it above mach one, and once we got it above the speed of sound, then you have supersonic flow over the whole airplane, so you have no more shock waves on it that are causing buffeting...You really don't think about the outcome of any kind of a flight, whether it's combat, or any other kinds of flights, because you really have no control over it.

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

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.

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

If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.

You concentrate on what you are doing, to do the best job you can, to stay out of a serious situation. That’s the way the X-1 was.