And then, when I thought about joining the Air Force, flying seemed like a natural extension of the motorcycling experience. You're going faster, higher. You're operating a machine that's a lot more powerful than you are.

I worked for some very good people who have helped me along the way and actually enabled me to have the opportunity to be selected to join the Astronaut Corps.

So, we have to get up and get pumped up for each day.

I had, before I went to college, I had taken a few years off after high school and really had, I guess in those days, I had no intentions of going to college.

Well, for me it really wasn't a case of deciding to be an astronaut.

And, obviously as a, as one who likes to travel around myself a lot, I think the Earth is a beautiful place. And, I'm looking forward to some new perspectives.

And, I wouldn't consider myself to be a natural pilot; I've had to work at it.

Being in space, I'm really looking forward to working with this team of folks that I'm with.

I consider myself to be very fortunate in my career, my timing has worked out.

That's what Hubble can do for us. It can tell us whether the universe is expanding forever or if one day it's going to come back together.

And, actually it was interesting because I had done a lot of traveling in the United States and Canada and Mexico on my motorcycle; and I was really, it was the first time I had really gotten out of the Minnesota area to speak of.

And then, when I thought about joining the Air Force, flying seemed like a natural extension of the motorcycling experience. You're going faster, higher. You're operating a machine that's a lot more powerful than you are.

I see it as one of my jobs to make sure that, it sounds ridiculous, but to make sure the folks are eating, make sure folks are getting enough fluids, make sure folks are, you know, comfortable in the orbiter.

Now you're coming back to Earth, and things are getting more and more dynamic.

And, all these things need to be coordinated; so we all need to work together, have timers going and everything so we're all coordinated and get this piece of orchestration done.

And, I was really impressed with how beautiful our country was and how friendly the people were.

Rendezvous day is the third day of our mission, and that's a big day for us.

So, I decided that whatever I was, wanted to do with my life, it would have to do, it would have to have something to do with the exploration and doing new things.

And, that's what I truly believe that we're doing when we're advancing scientific knowledge is we're someday making the world better. Not only for our children, but for all people after that.

Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space.

There's been a tremendous amount of work that's been done that you can't see in Columbia.

Because when we're in space, my job is primarily getting us there and getting us back.

You know, piloting really isn't my hobby. And, it's probably not something I'd do in my spare time if I could do whatever I wanted to do. But, I'll tell you: if you've got to make a living, it's a great way to make a living!

And, one thing I definitely enjoyed personally, from a selfish point of view, was exploration and going to places that I had never been to before and learning, you know, meeting the people and getting to know, new sights and sounds, etc.

I'm looking forward to coming back, back to Earth, the landing, the views.

Those folks out in the space suits are going to be getting beat up.

And, so I set my goals on astronaut because, as a military aviator, it was, I considered that to be about the peak of a flying career.

One of the jokes on our flight is that, if we have a normal entry day going, the plan is for me... to actually take the orbiter first and fly it for maybe 10 or 15 seconds and then hand it on over to Scooter.

I could do exploration in this particular career field, and it was a goal that, even if I didn't reach it, it was so high it seemed almost impossible, but even if I didn't reach it, I would still have a good time and a very satisfying career.

You know, Scooter's going to do the first separation burn; I'm going to do the second separation burn.

So, whenever Scooter was the Pilot, he never had a chance to fly the orbiter. So, the joke is: I'm going to have a chance to fly it first and hand it over to him.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past - whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

I've danced one time in my life. It was the most mortifying experience I ever had.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.

A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.

By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty.

Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

When I reached adulthood, even now, I could afford to belong to a country club. But I could never belong to a private club because of my experience as a child, because it would isolate me from the whole of humanity.

No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.

If you live long enough, you'll experience everything.

Actually I'd had a certain amount of experience in Europe in the inter-war period, as a banker, and I was also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Chamber of Commerce.

In the case of my book, I don't think it's really the coming-out gay novel that everyone really needed, even though it was received as such. The boy is too creepy, he betrays his teacher, the only adult man with whom he's enjoyed a sexual experience, etc.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.