Alan Bean Quotes

We're going through all the checklist, getting in position to make the entry and all that... And I think either Pete, Dick, or I said, 'Well, I wonder how those parachutes are doing?' And then someone else said... 'Well, we'll find out in about 55 minutes!'

- Alan Bean

It was hard for me to believe. I would look down and say, 'This is the moon, this is the moon,' and I would look up and say, 'That's the Earth, that's the Earth,' in my head. So, it was science fiction to us even as we were doing it.

- Alan Bean

On Earth, I weighed 150 pounds; my suit and backpack weighed another 150. 300 pounds. Up there, I weighed only 50. So I could prance around on my toes. It was quite easy to do.

- Alan Bean

As I ran along, I remember... saying to myself, 'You know, this is really the moon. We're really here... That's the Earth up there.' And I said it two or three times to myself.

- Alan Bean

The moon is very rugged.

- Alan Bean

History has spurts and then is steady, and then maybe even backing up a step, and then forward again.

- Alan Bean

I would say I had zero philosophical thoughts at that time. I was operating on a timed checklist that we've been trained to do, to try to maximize every really minute on the moon.

- Alan Bean

I was more of a person that liked flying and operating high-performance machinery, and I liked that, the skill it took, the intelligence it took to do that.

- Alan Bean

I had the good fortune and the gift to be one of the 12 men to walk on the moon.

- Alan Bean

If you remember back to some of the television we saw, Buzz and Neil on the Moon with Apollo 11. Black and white. They were bouncing around a lot. They were really bouncing on their tip toes. Quite fun to do.

- Alan Bean

I do not believe that anyone from outer space has ever visited the Earth.

- Alan Bean

I believe that 100, 200, 300 years from now, all these paintings will be around because they're the first paintings of humans doing things off this Earth.

- Alan Bean

But I'm the only one who can paint the moon, because I'm the only one who knows whether that's right or not.

- Alan Bean

I have the nicest life in the world.

- Alan Bean

One of the great things about the universe is that it's fair.

- Alan Bean

At one-sixth gravity in that suit, you have to move in a different way.

- Alan Bean

We knew it was going to be difficult to get to the moon. We didn't know how difficult.

- Alan Bean

Just like some day, say, 1000 years from now, when we can go to another star and see a planet, that's what we would do because we will know how to cure cancer, cure birth defects, so we would teach them.

- Alan Bean

It's hard not to be excited when you're going to find a way to land on the moon.

- Alan Bean

I can remember walking on the moon.

- Alan Bean

Eventually there are going to be cities in space.

- Alan Bean

I feel like there's too many paintings left unpainted that I just don't want to take the time away.

- Alan Bean

I feel blessed every day when I'm working on these paintings... the first artist to ever go to another world and try to tell stories that people care about.

- Alan Bean

I found I have to stay painting.

- Alan Bean

But I found that being an artist and doing accurate work is very difficult.

- Alan Bean