Quotes from Peggy Whitson

Know what it is that drives you - motivates you - and pursue it. Endeavor to work to make it happen.

My parents are the hardest-working people I ever knew: they always worked every day, all day; they had to come up with the solutions to make things work. And I think that work ethic, maybe stubbornness, single-mindedness, definitely played a role for me. I'm definitely thankful for my roots.

My work ethic is, I think, from my farm life.

Work ethic is probably my No. 1 value and No. 1 attribute.

It's been fun doing interviews with the other astronauts, getting to hear: 'Oh, that's how he explains it' or 'That's how she thinks about it.' We work together, but we don't necessarily share all those thoughts or ideas.

Even if my job for the day is cleaning the vents or fixing the toilet, it still feels good to be a part of the space program and advancing exploration.

I came from Iowa, south central Iowa. It was a very rural area. I saw a lot more hogs growing up than I saw people.

I do think space hotels are probably in our future.

I honestly do think that it is critical that we are continuously breaking records, because that represents us moving forward in exploration.

Drive and desire was something I was raised with. It became a very important part of how I've become.

I like to say I'm determined; some people would call it stubborn. It depends on your perspective.

Space flight's good for age; I have a lot less wrinkles up here. It's a good place to be as you get older.

Being a biochemist, I did a lot of tissue-culture research prior to working at NASA and when I first started working there.

There is a potential to be a big explosion of what spaceflight is gonna mean to just an everyday person in the near future. I think it's very hopeful for our young people: all the exciting things that they could be doing in the future relative to space and space exploration.

To be able to float and move around and, pretty much effortlessly, do whatever you want with your body in space is pretty amazing.

You can solve problems, but the solutions don't always have to be elaborate or expensive.

A lot of times, you think of things as being science fiction, but the creation of the ideas makes you want to solve them. Then, in solving them, they give us greater capability.

I have been blessed with some really special crewmates. Being able to be a really integral member of the team, no matter what role I was in, was truly special.

Life in zero gravity is hard to simulate. We practice on the ground what we call 'the day in the life' simulations, but it's just practicing some of the tests. It can't prepare you for the fact that all of your tools float if you don't pay attention to where they are! If you don't Velcro things down, they're gonna float away.

Zero gravity is such an alien environment - completely different from everything we've grown up with every single day of our lives. And it's incomprehensible how much better it was than I anticipated it would be.

You need to live a little bit outside your comfort zone because you can be even more than you dream of.

I think the biggest advice that I could give people is to actually try and live beyond your dreams by pushing yourself, challenging yourself to do things a little bit outside of your comfort zone.

Walking in space is absolutely the most exhilarating part of a mission. The view is just incredible.

Hopefully, we will get more and more people interested in doing research in space. I think eventually it's also going to be a great commercial market.