I did not come to NASA to make history....

The experience of being in space didn't change my perspective of myself or of the planet or of life. I had no spiritual experience.

The food isn't too bad. It's very different from the food that the astronauts ate in the very early days of the space program.

It takes a couple of years just to get the background and knowledge that you need before you can go into detailed training for your mission.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

Every age has its own poetry in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began.