Quotes from Chuck Yeager

Never wait for trouble.

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

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

Everybody that I've ever seen that enjoyed their job was very good at it.

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

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.

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

I don't think about life everlasting. If something doesn't have scientific evidence to back it up, I don't believe it. I'm a straight shooter.

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

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.

I have no regrets about my life. People ask, "If you had to do it all over again, would you do it differently?" No. That's speculation.

The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down.

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.

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

At the moment of truth, there are either reasons or results.

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.

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.

The secret of my success is that I always managed to live to fly another day.

After about 30 minutes I puked all over my airplane. I said to my self, "Man, you made a big mistake."

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

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.

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

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.