The Right Stuff (1983)

Sam Shepard: Chuck Yeager

Photos 

Quotes 

• [repeated lines] 

  Chuck Yeager : Hey, Ridley, ya got any Beeman's?

  Jack Ridley : Yeah, I think I got me a stick.

  Chuck Yeager : Loan me some, will ya? I'll pay ya back later.

  Jack Ridley : Fair enough.

• Chuck Yeager : I'm a fearless man, but I'm scared to death of you.

  Glennis Yeager : Oh no you're not. But you oughta be.

• Jack Ridley : [talking to TV]  Attaboy, Gus!

  [talking to Yeager] 

  Jack Ridley : Pull that stuff on flight test, it's all over for him. I say he screwed the pooch, pardner. Plain and simple.

  Chuck Yeager : Yeah, well, sometimes you get a pooch that can't be screwed, ya know?

  Liaison Man : [chuckling]  Exactly! Right now the President's got his own problems with the Bay of Pigs, he doesn't want the astronauts' image tarnished. Nothing these guys do is gonna be called a failure. You'd think the public would know they're just doing what monkeys have done.

  Chuck Yeager : Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he's sittin' on a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys, they know that, see? I'll tell you somethin'. Takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially when it's on TV. Ol' Gus, he did alright.

• Chuck Yeager : Anybody that goes up in the damn thing is gonna be Spam in a can.

• Chuck Yeager : Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he's sittin' on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV. Ol' Gus, he did all right.

• Chuck Yeager : Hey, Ridley, make another note here, would ya? Must be something wrong with this ol' Mach meter. Jumped plumb off the scale. Gone kinda screwy on me.

  Jack Ridley : You go ahead and bust it, we'll fix it. Personally, I think you're seein' things.

  Chuck Yeager : Yeah, could be. But I'm still goin' upstairs like a bat outta hell.

• [about Yeager's bruised ribs] 

  Jack Ridley : How bad did you ding 'em?

  Chuck Yeager : Well, you might say as I broke a couple of the sons-o'-bitches.

• Chuck Yeager : [NASA recruiters are talking to test pilots]  You need lab rabbits.

  Recruiter : Sorry, I didn't get that.

  Chuck Yeager : I said you need lab rabbits to curl up in your damn capsule. With its heart going "pitter-patter". And a wire up the kazook. I don't hold with it.

  Scott Crossfield : I don't either. You want a pilot to become a balistic missile. And then splash down - possibly get lost at sea.

  Pancho Barnes : See, some peckerwood's gotta get the thing up. And some peckerwood's gotta land the son of a bitch. And that "peckerwood" is called a "pilot".

• Jack Ridley : [showing Life Magazine cover with astronaut chimp]  Here he is, Captain Ham!

  [pilots all laugh] 

  Jack Ridley : Grinnin' like a possum eatin' a sweet potato.

  Chuck Yeager : Heh heh.heh heh. Look at the teeth!

  Jack Ridley : Does he look like the kinda guy who'd put doo doo in the capsule?