“In the U.S., we really have fallen short of road-racing facilities that have kept up with the times, unfortunately, but it’s a fact.”

I count my blessings every day, quite honestly, because I take nothing for granted.

If the Indy Racing League didn’t have the Indianapolis 500, do you think it would have lasted more than six months? No chance.

It seemed like whenever I got a bona fide offer from Ferrari, I couldn’t do it. And vice versa – when I was ready, their seats were taken.

Every NASCAR driver watches Formula One in the morning; they are well informed.

When you start thinking you may get hurt, it’s time to get out of racing.

You do the best you can with what’s thrown at you, then you try again.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the expansion to countries like Asia, China, Malaysia.

You see people in the left lane, and as long as they are on the speed limit, they stay there. Get in the right lane and let people pass you.

I wanted to have a career that would last a hundred years if possible.

Nothing compares to the Indianapolis 500.

The most important thing at Daytona is, are you going to have friends willing to work with you during the race as far as drafting?

As far as I’m concerned, Parnelli Jones was the greatest driver of his era. He had aggressiveness and also a finesse that no one else possessed. And he won with everything he put his hands on, including off-road.

The banked oval tracks are obsolete tracks for Indy cars.

I don’t want to go out there and do something 3,000 other people can do.

I don’t remember as a kid wanting to do or be anything else but drive something, be a race driver.

I think it’s counterproductive in many ways to pretend to know things you don’t.

All this time i’ve hated myself for it. I thought i’d given it up for nothing. But if i hadn’t fallen, i wouldn’t have met you.

But if i hadn’t fallen, i wouldn’t have met you.

With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you’ve fallen into good hands – someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.

I love technology – yes, I have fallen in love with older cars, but I’m all for new technology.

If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity.

Advances have fallen, generally, for everything except the biggest potential bestsellers.

The art of the novel, however, has fallen into such a state of stagnation – a lassitude acknowledged and discussed by the whole of critical opinion – that it is hard to imagine such an art can survive for long without some radical change.

When I got to the end the top was down.