"I felt wonderful when the gravity pull began to disappear. I suddenly found I could do things much more easily than before. And it seemed as though my hands and legs and my whole body did not belong t…"

"To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature-could one dream of anything more?"

"The Earth is very beautiful. I could see the continents clearly, the rivers, the clouds, the snow-capped mountains."

"I am a simple Soviet man. I was born in a simple family, and I have grown up under the Soviet government."

"I want to dedicate this flight to the people of communism."