I wanna save Quill so I can prove I’m better than him! I can lord this over him forever… What are you laughing at me for?
… I feel like Yondu didn’t save only Peter in this movie, but also Rocket.
Everything Yondu tells Rocket here is something he himself had to learn over years, painfully, and his final lesson had been the mutiny that almost broke his spirit, had it not been for his one purpose – saving Peter.
And because he knows he probably won’t be around to do it later, because he knows this is a suicide mission, he has to speed up the lessons for Rocket and drill all of this (^^^^) into him as fast and resolutely as he can. Rocket doesn’t get years, he gets minutes, and all Yondu can do is hope that it will work and that Peter, Kraglin, Groot, all those who accepted him as well as Rocket, will later be around to help Rocket to learn and internalize these lessons.
(Aka Yondu just adopted Rocket, too. Space Dad for all.)