"You can choose to focus on the surprises and pleasures, or the frustrations. And you can choose to appreciate the smallest scraps of experience, the everyday moments, or to value only the grandest, most stirring ones. Ultimately, the real question is whether you want to be happy. I didn’t need to leave the planet to find the right answer."

"But if seeing 16 sunrises a day and all of Earth’s variety steadily on display for five months had taught me anything, it was that there are always more challenges and opportunities out there than time to experience them."

"When the Shuttle program was winding down, reporters repeatedly urged me to go public with my private pain: “We know you’re sad about the end of the program, but just how sad are you?” I wasn’t sad at all. I was extremely proud. I was part of a team that flew the Shuttle 135 times and used it to put the Hubble telescope into orbit, to build part of Mir and to help build the ISS. Along the way, we recovered from two devastating accidents, the Challenger and Columbia disasters. After Columbia, so many people said it was time to mothball the Shuttle—what was the purpose of going to space again, why risk lives? But somehow, despite the media’s simplistic focus and all the naysayers who had no knowledge of the issues but plenty of opinions, we prevailed and the Shuttle flew again, safely. The complexity of the project we needed the Shuttle for was astonishing—the Station’s design wasn’t even complete when the first pieces of the ISS launched—yet we did it. So there’s no reason at all to be sad that the Shuttle era is over and the spaceships are in museums. They were great workhorses of space exploration, and they served their purpose."

Amazing book by Chris Hadfield retired Canadian astronaut. There are so many reasons I would recommend to read this book, even if you do not care about space exploration. Waiting for his next book.

Next up The Martian by Andy Weir