Newton, Einstein, and every other great scientist in history...They all made mistakes. Of course they did. They're human! Science is a way to keep from fooling ourselves and each other.

I think we are all the sum of that which has happened in our lives. And if you're successful, it would be wrong to think that you'd be more successful had something been easier. That's not a given.

Going into orbit around Earth - where the space station is today, and where the space shuttles and John Glenn and all those folks go-that's three-eighths of an inch above a schoolroom globe, just FYI. That's not very far from Earth. Yes, you are off Earth, but you're not really going anywhere yet. The moon was the only real destination.

You like to explore things, and your parents don't like it because it gets the pots and pans dirty, and because it's noisy - but for you it's fun, you're resting. You're actually doing experiments... Just tell your parents that they're experiments, and you want to become a scientist, and then they won't stop you from doing anything you want.

Anyone who has wrestled knows that it's the hardest thing in the world to do. Anyone who says something else is the hardest thing has never wrestled. That's what I have found. ... You don't wrestle because it's easy, you wrestle because it's hard. I don't do astrophysics because it's easy, I do it because it's hard. And I juxtapose the two in my mind, body, and soul all the time.

You gotta be a good sport! So when I would lose, I would say, "That guy was better than I was; what do I have to do to be better next time?"

I love the future we might invent for ourselves that I have not yet dreamt of.