A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode.

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

The beach was awesome.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

Let’s light this fire one more time, Mike, and witness this great nation at its best.

That’s one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind.

Houston, that may have seemed like a very long final phase. The autotargeting was taking us right into a … crater, with a large number of big boulders and rocks … and it required … flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good area.

It’s just mind-blowingly awesome. I apologize, and I wish I was more articulate, but it’s hard to be articulate when your mind’s blown—but in a very good way.