Chuck Yeager

"Actually, when people tell you that, "I had my mind made up when I was two years old to do this," I think you should take that with a grain of salt. Because it's very difficult for a kid who is going through an educational process, and being exposed to the world, to decide what he wants to do. Because he really hadn't been exposed to that kind of a life yet. And I had no idea what I wanted to do, except exist and that was about it. I had no interest in airplanes; we didn't even know what an airplane was. We didn't even see them except flying in the air. So obviously, there was no interest in them at all."

"My father taught me to finish anything I started. And I think that carries throughout your adult life. Most people's personalities and moralities are formed when they are rather young, and that characteristic will carry out throughout their lifetime. We were disciplined as kids, quite severely, if you didn't finish your jobs, and I think that's what brought about a desire to finish what I start and do the best job you could. And that's probably the reason that characteristic has carried throughout my life."

"There is no kind of ultimate goal to do something twice as good as anyone else can. It's just to do the job as best you can. If it turns out good, fine. If it doesn't, that's the way it goes."

"In World War II, in combat in P-51s, during dogfights with 109s and 190s, for the first time we became exposed to the effects of the speed of sound on our airplanes. A Mustang, a P-47, or any of the other fighters that we were using in World War II, the fastest they would go was about 80 percent the speed of sound. They had very thick wings and canopies. That additional distance that the air had to travel to go around that wing that's going at about 80 percent of the speed of sound, brought its relative velocity to the skin of the wing up to the speed of sound."

"You like the P-51 because you flew it in combat. It was a good airplane. But today, the newer the airplane, the better it is. It's just like a car. You get a 1991 Cadillac, you got high tech, a lot of computer technology in it, versus a 1980 Cadillac. It's just better and more fun to drive."

"The more experience you have, the better you are. And that's true of anything you do in airplanes, dogfighting in combat, or anything like that. Your chances of coming out on top depend on your experience level. The more experience you can get, the better chance you have of surviving in a war, or in any situation where you are faced with an emergency."

"Well ... the point is, what does being a religious person mean? Does a religious person have to go to church all day and pray every night and morning? No, to me, if that's the description of a religious person, then I'm definitely not religious person. But that I definitely know right from wrong, you know, and what honesty is and because you were taught that in your family. But you don't have to believe that there is such a thing as a God who controls everything that happens because you are trained as a scientific guy. You know ... there are a lot of things, like you use the expression, the more I practice, the luckier I get."

"In my opinion there’s no such thing as a natural-born pilot. A pilot’s ability depends on experience, and the more experience a pilot has, the better he is. It’s that simple."

"I felt like all my buddies were still in this squadron, those who hadn’t been shot down, and I just felt I hadn’t done my job. I’d been taught to do my job, and that’s the reason when I went back I felt good about it. And I said, “Hell, if I come home as a flight officer, with one airplane, I’ll be a flight officer the rest of my life.”"

"Hey, man, get a job you like and you’ll probably be quite good at it. And make your lifestyle fit your income. Don’t try to make your income fit your lifestyle. It’s that simple. Guys who like their job, they’re very good at it. I don’t care what it is."

"I spent 65 years in air force cockpits and fought in four wars, but I never looked at it as an adventure. It’s duty. You could say that the most important thing I did was break the sound barrier. That’s the reason we’re on the moon. But it was my job to try. That’s the way I looked at it. Whatever the outcome, it didn’t really make much difference to me."

"I don’t dream. I don’t have nightmares. I’m gifted in that I can lie down and sleep within a minute anywhere I am, any time of day."

"I recall, we had—all of the guys, though, that got to be aces over there, you can pretty well pick the guys out. They were guys that weren’t cocky or conceited. They just had a job to do, and they trained themselves the best they could to the job right. And I think you can pretty well pick the guys out. They’reall—they like to have fun. They’re not a bunch of pessimists or optimists, either one. They’re pretty average people when you start looking at the cross-section of all aces we have."