John Glenn quotes:

The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.

By its very definition, civic responsibility means taking a healthy role in the life of one's community. That means that classroom lessons should be complemented by work outside the classroom. Service-learning does just that, tying community service to academic learning.

I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity.

I don't know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.

There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety.

The moment of twilight is simply beautiful.

If there is one thing I've learned in my years on this planet, it's that the happiest and most fulfilled people I've known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest.

Zero G and I feel fine.

I hate to think that we may be out there seven to ten years out and dependent on the Russians for our journey into space.

That was a real fireball.

I think a mentor gets a lot of satisfaction in a couple of ways. They're doing something constructive, so they feel good about that. And when they see the results of this, with the young people they're working with, it's very, very rewarding.

This is a day we have managed to avoid for a quarter of a century.

Just because I'm 77 doesn't mean I don't have a dream.

As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.

To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.

We have an infinite amount to learn both from nature and from each other.

I suppose the one quality in an astronaut more powerful than any other is curiosity. They have to get some place nobody's ever been.

When others kid me about being bald, I simply tell them that the way I figure it, the good Lord only gave men so many hormones, and if others want to waste theirs on growing hair, that's up to them.

A lot of people ask...why a man is willing to risk... Well, we've got to do it. We're going into an age of exploration that will be bigger than anything the world has ever seen... If a man faces up to the (unknown) and takes the dare of the future, he can have some control over his destiny.

Too many people, when they get old, think that they have to live by the calendar.

You know, old folks can have dreams, too, as well as young folks, and then work toward them. And to have a dream like this come true for me is just a terrific experience.

This is a day we have managed to avoid for a quarter of a century. We've talked about it before and speculated about it, and it finally has occurred. We hoped we could push this day back forever.

There is still no cure for the common birthday.

To get your name well enough known that you can run for a public office, some people do it by being great lawyers or philanthropists or business people or work their way up the political ladder. I happened to become known from a different route.

We're going to go to the moon. We're going to go on to Mars. We're going to set up a base on the moon. OK, but no money to pay for it, nothing in the budget for it. And so the decision made at that time was to cancel the whole shuttle program to save money, which I think was very, very short sighted.

I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it.

We (the DOE) are poisoning our people in the name of national security.

We used to joke about canned men, putting people in a can and seeing how far you can send them and bring them back. That's not the purpose of this program... Space is a laboratory, and we go into it to work and learn the new.

I still have my [flight] license and I can still pass a flight physical.

I still love to fly and I'll never get over that.

Because now, you know, it's going to be a number of years yet before we have our own new boosters and new spacecraft to go to our own International Space Station and proceed with all the research that we spent $100 billion putting up there to give us that research capability for the future for people right here on Earth.

There had been a number of failures but we weren't going out to ride a failure. And we felt they'd corrected all the difficulties with the boosters before that time and the launch problems. And so we had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly.

I don't like the way the whole thing has developed. And I just hope that we develop our own transportation system, both spacecraft and new boosters, as soon as possible. I hate to think that we may be out there seven to ten years out and dependent on the Russians for our journey into space.

Americans just want us to... not be concerned if they can be constitutionally justified... Why, if we had to do that we could not pass most of the laws we enact around here.

We thought that the odds of things working OK were up in the upper 90 percent or we wouldn't have gone. But the - there were some problems cropped up on the flight but was able to take care of those OK and - although they were things that we hadn't really trained that much for. But it was the time of the Cold War and so there were was a lot of pressure on the - to get going and the Russians were claiming that they were - Soviets were claiming they were ahead of us in technology.

Liftoff is very, very gentle, contrary to what most people think. Because you remember, the weight of the booster - the amount of thrust on the engine is just barely enough to get the booster underway. And so it's a very gentle liftoff, contrary to what most people think when they see all the fire and smoke of launch.

We had an airplane, a Beechcraft Baron, that we - I had since 1981. And Annie [Glenn] and I both of had to have knee replacements unfortunately over the past year, and it made it more difficult to climb up on the airplane. We weren't using it that much so we did - it hurt a lot but I finally sold the airplane.

We had a lot of confidence that there was going to be a successful mission. We weren't off on some suicide effort, certainly [with Friendship 7].

That whole day [ of the space flight] is very vividly impressed on my memory because it was such a new experience. We hadn't done that before. And then I've recalled it so often since then I think that it's a - it's remained very vivid over the past 50 years, seems to me like about a week or two instead of 50 years.

It was the time of the Cold War and so there were was a lot of pressure on the - to get going and the Russians were claiming that they were - Soviets were claiming they were ahead of us in technology. And so it was against that backdrop that the early space flights took off.