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.

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

You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.

Never wait for trouble.

I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit.

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.

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

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

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.

You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can't, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don't give up.

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.

In 1966, NASA took over in space, and it has been a bureaucratic mess ever since.

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

It's really difficult for fanatic churchgoers to understand God can't help me. I'm the only one who can help me.

The one word you use in military flying is duty. It's your duty. You have no control over outcome, no control over pick-and-choose. It's duty.

What good does it do to be afraid? It doesn't help anything. You better try and figure out what's happening and correct it.

When I was picked to fly the X-1, it was my duty to fly it, and I did.

You do what you can for as long as you can and when you finally cant you do the next best thing. You back up but you dont give up.

The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life.

For me, it really is about the self-acceptance... the more time that I spend really accepting and allowing myself to be exactly where I am, the faster it is I move towards what I wanna be doing.

The EPA could act to open the transportation-fuel market to vigorous competition from natural gas as well as coal, biomass, and trash, by legalizing methanol. This would force oil prices down, expand the economy, and create millions of jobs.

Empty sacks will never stand upright.

We are all farmers tending a little part of the Lord's vineyard.

In the 1950s, Pakistan allied with the United States in something called the Central Treaty Organization. We were lined up with, at that time, Iran, ruled by the Shah, and Pakistan and Turkey as a southward shield against Soviet expansion toward the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. It was part of the containment strategy.

I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment.

The wonderful thing about looking at the real world is that it is never the same for each individual.

There's a lot of noise in the world, and the Internet magnifies that energy.

To reclaim the prodigal is well but to save him from ever being a prodigal is better.

I'm just little me, an American who wants to see his country do better.

Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe you cant take a taxi.

At the end of the day, tell yourself gently: 'I love you, you did the best you could today, and even if you didn't accomplish all you had planned, I love you anyway.

My attention span is all over the place, and I overthink things. I'm an insomniac.

I'll never forget when me and Jason Matthews wrote the line, 'Don't be a tape player hater,' in 'Country Man,' I don't think I ever laughed harder. We didn't know where we were gonna put that in a song, but we knew we had to make it into a song. I just remember laughing and being so proud of such a goofy little line.

I wake up every day with a smile on my face.

We need to develop clean, affordable, and reliable energy sources, and frankly, we need to license that technology to the rest of the world.

Well, I think, you know, the arts are really what - one of the things that make this country strong. We always think it's our economy or our military power, but in fact, I think it's our culture, our civilization, our ideas, our creativity.

The difference between winning and losing is always a mental one.

I have enormous respect for anyone who would offer to sacrifice their life to defend my right to live. Is there any greater gift one can give another?

I feel like I'm extremely normal. I do have a bizarre face that's a bit out of proportion. I guess that's why some people see me as strange.

No one wants to kill Schengen, but if it is only a fairweather system, then it cannot survive.

I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading.

At the close of my visit, my Hawaiian friends urged me strongly to publish my impressions and experiences, on the ground that the best books already existing, besides being old, treat chiefly of aboriginal customs and habits now extinct, and of the introduction of Christianity and subsequent historical events.