Richard Dreyfuss Quotes

I respect John Kennedy for saying that he had a dream that we'd go to the moon before the end of the decade.

When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon, the question wasn't whether we'd get there, it was only when we'd get there.

The moon landing was such a magnificent accomplishment in U.S. space history. I think that boots on the moon was just one indicator of the rapid technology advancement and really just showed what we can do when all of us are dedicated to a single goal over a long period of time.

Sending a couple of guys to the Moon and bringing them back safely? That's a stunt! That's not historic.

I don't think the space station is innovative. Going to the moon was innovative because we had no idea how to do it.

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.

If you look, like, in 1960, there was no such thing as an astronaut. It was a totally fanciful concept, but nine years later or whatever, we were landing on the moon, which is just astonishing.

MEN WALK ON THE MOON. To me, this speaks of a time when America wasn't just about the almighty buck. The Russians had put up Sputnik, and the U.S. would not be outdone. I admire that about the American spirit. There's only one spot in history for the first ever of anything.

Kennedy had made a mess in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He had to do something to look good. The Apollo program of going to the Moon was quite a goal.

I'm not particularly impressed with going 50 miles per gallon. That doesn't impress me when we can go to the moon.

When Kennedy said, 'Let's go to the moon,' we didn't yet have a vehicle that wouldn't kill you on launch. He said we'll land a man on the moon in eight years and bring him back. That was an audacious goal to put forth in front of the American people.

If we hadn't put a man on the moon, there wouldn't be a Silicon Valley today.

Throughout history, when societies have been faced with big challenges, they've put their best people on them. During the Space Race, American and Russian scientists, engineers, astronauts and cosmonauts pushed the bounds of what was possible and landed men on the moon.

You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times... and safely home again.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

We got to the moon.

Neil Armstrong was no Christopher Columbus. In most respects, he was better. Unlike the famous fifteenth century seafarer, Armstrong knew where he landed. He also spent his time in public service, not in jail, and his passing was marked by world-wide encomiums. He ended his days as a celebrated explorer rather than a royal inconvenience.

In 1962, President Kennedy succeeded in captivating Americans by explaining the advantages of being the first country to reach the moon and the dangers of allowing another nation to beat us there.

The decision to go to the moon is now appreciated and associated with President Kennedy's speech, but somebody else had told him it was a good idea. It turned out to be a good commitment, but it was a unique situation.

We got to the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, at the end of a poor year for this country. We had Vietnam. We had civil unrest. We had the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. But we went around the moon and saw the far side for the first time. A script writer couldn't have done a better job of raising people's hope.

We can dream about putting a man on the Moon, and within a decade, we actually made it happen.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the 1960s, and I think there was a synchronicity of events that inspired me to be an astronaut, and, of course, the backdrop is nothing less than Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. That was a time in our nation where we aspired to great things, and we achieved them.

I believed that once we got to the Moon, there was no stopping us. But in fact, we did stop.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Landing on the moon was a dream that millions of kids have had for hundreds of years.