Homer Hickam

“I have always found the best way to live is to be optimistic and energetic and willing to work hard for my dreams as well as the dreams of others.”

“I grew up listening to my dad, a miner who rose through the ranks to be the mine superintendent in Coalwood, W.V. , yelling orders into his black company phone. He wanted to get coal out of the ground and into coal cars and on its way to steel mills.”

“One thing we've learned about space is that the human body starts to fall apart after relatively short exposures to microgravity.”

“My dad was a miner, but he was very much an intellectual. He loved to read.”

“I ate supper after Dad saw the evening shift down the shaft, and I went to sleep to the ringing of a hammer on steel and the dry hiss of an arc welder at the little tipple machine shop during the hoot-owl shift.”

“I always give a little talk before I sign books and ask for questions. I love the Q&A sessions. We have a lot of fun at my book signings. I make sure of that!”

“The way I see it, if everybody ran from bad things instead of trying to stop them, bad things would be all there is.”

“Tired of burning fossil fuel and polluting the planet? The moon is covered with helium 3, an isotope from the sun that is the perfect fuel for clean fusion reactors.”

“I've seen the government up close and personal, and for the most part, it's inefficient and hidebound, and it stifles creativity in any industry it clutches within its well-meaning but slimy tentacles.”

“Remember, it isn't the dreamers who have good lives - it's the doers. Remember also what I call the three Ps of success: passion, planning, and perseverance.”

“After I'd gotten a year under my belt in college, I thought I'd outgrown my home.”

“I want to make the conquest of the moon the United States' goal for the 21st century and, through that goal, to make us a great and good and happy country for generations to come.”

“For a country like ours that needs to stay ahead of the world or go under, we must do great, ambitious things - like going to the moon - to survive.”

“After marketing surveys by Universal Studios indicated that 'Rocket Boys' as a movie title would not attract the female over-age-thirty demographic, the film was retitled and released as 'October Sky.'”

“Interestingly, 'October Sky' is an anagram of 'Rocket Boys', the same letters just moved around. This was discovered by director Joe Johnston using an anagram program on his computer.”

“Personally, I've got bigger hopes for NASA. I will stipulate it should keep putting telescopes in space so we can figure out where we fit in the universe, and it should also keep building those little robots that can and do.”

“When the moon was first visited in 1969, the astronauts brought back a treasure trove of unique minerals. Contained within specimens was an isotope called Helium-3, which turns out to be the perfect fuel for fusion reactors.”

“A memoir is not an autobiography. It's a true story told as a novel, using techniques of novelization. The author is allowed to compress events, combine characters, change names, change the sequence of events, just as if he's writing a novel. But it's got to be true.”

“Glenn's 1962 Mercury flight was fraught with dramatics, from his 'Zero G and I feel fine!' exultation upon entering orbit to his reentry with what was feared was a faulty heat shield. After he safely splashed down, the nation erupted with applause and gratitude not seen since Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic.”

“All my life, everything important that had ever happened had always happened somewhere else. But Sputnik was right there in front of my eyes in my backyard... I felt that if I stretched out enough, I could touch it.”