I can't remember a single time [my parents] ever told me not to do something I wanted to do.

NASA has to approve whatever we wear, so there are clothes to choose from, like space shorts - we wear those a lot - and NASA T-shirts.

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle.

So I saw many planets, and they looked just a little bit brighter than they do from Earth.

I've discovered that half the people would love to go into space and there's no need to explain it to them. The other half can't understand and I couldn't explain it to them. If someone doesn't know why, I can't explain it.

When you can feel that close to something you're used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person.

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.