It took me a long time to get selected as an astronaut. In fact, I applied for 20 years before I was selected.
I was tortured fifteen times, that's total submission. They did that with shutting off your blood circulation with ropes, giving you claustrophobia and pain at the same time, bending you double.
I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.
Vietnam was the first time that Americans of different races had to depend on each other. In the Second World War, they were segregated; it was in Vietnam that American integration happened in the military - and it wasn't easy.
Every time the liberals pass a bill - I don't care what it involves - they stick criminal sanctions on it. They don't feel there is any way people are going to keep a law unless they can put them in jail.
Although Patterson Beams was not my first plug-in, I knew from the beginning that I would write it, because the single biggest time consuming factor for me was editing each beam manually.
When you're told to go brief a United States senator on a covert operation, you go do it. And you trust the information isn't going to leak.
Iraq and Afghanistan will, over time, become stable. But the War on Terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments.
What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.
I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.
I do not believe that the men who served in uniform in Vietnam have been given the credit they deserve. It was a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy.
But I'm the only one who can paint the moon, because I'm the only one who knows whether that's right or not.
We need to focus on green jobs: solar, wind, geothermal, biomass. There's so many opportunities. But other countries like China are getting ahead of the curve.
Of course I was delighted the flight was over, but I still had to worry about cleaning up inside the cabin, I had to worry about the hatch, how to get in the sling, and so on.
The excitement really didn't start to build until the trailer - which was carrying me, with a space suit with ventilation and all that sort of stuff - pulled up to the launch pad.
The first plane ride was in a homemade glider my buddy and I built. Unfortunately we didn't get more than four feet off the ground, because it crashed.
I plan on staying at Alabama for the rest of my career. I guarantee that I'll be here for you through it all, regardless of what happens.
After all, despite the economic advantage to firms that employed child labor, it was in the social interest, as a national policy, to abolish it - removing that advantage for all firms.
What is new is that environmentalism intensely illuminates the need to confront the corporate domain at its most powerful and guarded point - the exclusive right to govern the systems of production.
I don't believe in environmentalism as the solution to anything. What I believe is that environmentalism illuminates the things that need to be done to solve all of the problems together.
As I said before, there are often disagreements as to what a particular set of facts mean. That is not at all unusual, and one shouldn't read into it more than is there.
