Margot Lee Shetterly

“I was surprised how little I knew about the significant contributions to aviation that had happened right there in Hampton, Virginia.”

“Our next-door neighbour taught physics at Hampton University. Our church abounded with mathematicians. Supersonics experts held leadership positions in my mother's sorority, and electrical engineers sat on the board of my parents' college alumni associations.”

“Katherine Johnson actually integrated the public university in West Virginia. And Mary Jackson had to petition state courts to be allowed to attend an all-white college to get the qualifications needed to become an engineer. At every turn, these women were involved in the Second World War, the Cold War, the civil rights movement.”

“It has been very rare to see a black woman as a protagonist. And also as three-dimensional people - mathematicians, mothers, wives, complicated people, not perfect.”

“What I wanted was for them to have a grand, sweeping narrative that they deserved, the kind of American history that belongs to the Wright Brothers and the astronauts, to Alexander Hamilton and Martin Luther King Jr. Not told as a separate history, but as part of the story we all know. Not at the margins, but at the very center, the protagonists of the drama. And not just because they are black, or because they are women, but because they are part of the American epic.”

“The Russians had got a real head-start into space; America was playing catch-up.”

“Of course, while Katherine took the accolades in stride, she never took the work for granted. Not a morning dawned that she didn't wake up eager to get to the office. The passion that she had for her job was a gift, one that few people ever experienced.”

“That's what 'Star Trek' was: We don't know how to make an ideal society, but we're going to portray that, and then we're going to work backward. I think that's why science fiction - despite the dystopian parts - comes out of this super ideal that, eventually, we will get to some better place where we actually live up to our ideals.”

“I want to keep telling stories of ordinary people.”

“I guess it's inevitable that I would become somebody who would write about scientists.”

“The success of 'Hidden Figures' proves that people are interested in, hungry for, stories about transcendent human experiences.”

“Without imagination, I don't think there's any progress.”

“My dad worked with Mary Jackson very closely at one point. I knew Katherine Johnson as well. They were all part of this group of black engineers and scientists within this larger NASA community.”

“There is so much talent among our young people; I hope the women in 'Hidden Figures' inspire them.”

“History happens as soon as I pick up my coffee cup - it happened 30 seconds ago. It's history.”

“How do we fill the need for technology workers, people who have computer skills and math and science skills? How do we get a more diverse science workforce? These are all issues - I would look at these documents that were from the '50s and '60s and '70s, and you'd swear they were written two weeks ago because the issues are the same.”

“As much as I think it is necessary and desirable for white people to have an expanded view of the black American experience, it's probably even more important for black people to have that expanded view.”

“I started to think of 'Hidden Figures' as the first part of a mid-century African-American trilogy.”

“You can't change history. These things happened the way they did. What you can change is how you look at it and how you understand that it takes the good moments and it takes the difficult moments to move forward.”

“West Virgina never left Katherine's heart, but Virginia was her destiny.”