13 First Man Quotes (2024)

First Man

Neil Armstrong: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

First Man

Neil Armstrong: I don't know what space exploration will uncover, but I don't think it'll be exploration just for the sake of exploration. I think it'll be more the fact that it allows us to see things. That maybe we should have seen a long time ago. But just haven't been able to until now.

First Man

Deke Slayton: Jan, you have to trust us. We've got this under control.
Janet Armstrong: No, you don't. All these protocols and procedures to make it seem like you have it under control. But you're a bunch of boys making models out of balsa wood! You don't have anything under control!

First Man

Older Rick Armstrong: Mom, what's wrong?
Janet Armstrong: Nothing, honey. Your dad's going to the Moon.
Older Rick Armstrong: Okay. Can I go outside?

First Man

Pete Conrad: Neil, I was sorry to hear about your daughter.
Neil Armstrong: I'm sorry, is there a question?
Pete Conrad: What I... What I mean is... Do you think it'll have an effect?
Neil Armstrong: I think it would be unreasonable to assume that it wouldn't have some effect.

First Man

Janet Armstrong: Pat doesn't have a husband. Those kids, they don't have a father anymore. Do you understand what that means? What are the chances that's going to be Ricky and Mark? And I can't tell them that their dad spent the last few minutes packing his briefcase! You're gonna sit them down. Both of them. And you're going to prepare them for the fact that you might not ever

come home. You're doing that. You. Not me. I'm done.

First Man

Deke Slayton: Why do you think space flight is important?
Neil Armstrong: I had a few opportunities in the X-15 to observe the atmosphere. It was so thin, such a small part of the Earth that you could barely see it at all. And when you're down here in the crowd and you look up, it looks pretty big and you don't think about it too much. But when you get a

different vantage point it changes your perspective.

First Man

Buzz Aldrin: I'm just saying what you're thinking.
Neil Armstrong: Maybe you shouldn't.

First Man

Older Rick Armstrong: Do you think you're coming back?
Neil Armstrong: We have real confidence in the mission, and there are some risks, but we have every intention of coming back.
Older Rick Armstrong: But you might not?

First Man

Pat White: I've got a sorority sister with a normal life.
Janet Armstrong: Yeah?
Pat White: She married a dentist.
Janet Armstrong: A dentist? Sounds good.
Pat White: He's home by six every night. And every few months she calls to say she wishes he weren't.

First Man

Bob Gilruth: Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know there is no hope for their recovery.
Bob Gilruth: They will be mourned by their families; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the

unknown...
Bob Gilruth: Others will follow, and surely find their way home. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
Bob Gilruth: For every human being who looks up at the moon in nights to come will know there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.