61 Quotes by Chuck Yeager

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.

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

That to me is a bunch of crap trying to shoot guys up into damned space. What they're going to do is they're going to wipe out half a dozen people one of these days, and that will be the end of it.

Leveling off at 42,000 feet, I had thirty percent of my fuel, so I turned on rocket chamber three and immediately reached .96 Mach. I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride. Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach - then tipped right off the scale ... We were flying supersonic. And it was a smooth as a baby's bottom; Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade.

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

The best pilots fly more than the others; that's why they're the best.

Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.

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

Just before you break through the sound barrier, the cockpit shakes the most.