“The day of parochialism in sports is over. The world is too small for what people like to call ‘the good old days.’”

All of the courses that run through real streets are very demanding. There is no room for error, no shoulders to lean on.

Unfortunately, we don’t educate drivers enough to be respectful on the road.

The United States is the only country where a driver can have a successful career – either in stock cars or IndyCar – and he won’t need a passport.

I will never say ‘retired’ because that’s such a finality that I don’t want to be part of my life. I’ll work until they throw me in a box.

If you’re so afraid of failure, you will never succeed. You have to take chances.

My wife loves football, but I think she’s resigned to the fact that I’ll never make it there.

Al Unser Sr. was one of the smartest drivers I’ve ever raced against.

Long Beach is the best. I tell everyone that.

I wish we could be 100% shielded from danger, but nothing is in life.

Same with golf: pick up a club. But not many can go out and get in a race car and experience a drive at over 200 miles an hour.

In NASCAR, you can do a lot of banging around and get pretty serious and even get yourself upside down.

If you go off the road, you’re into somebody’s shop-window or front porch.

Motor racing is like one big family, ultimately, and when you come back to it, that’s really what it feels like.

I’ve driven just about every kind of car there is.

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.

I remember being about six years old, for the first day of school, and sitting in the back of a Chrysler, pretending to cry while listening to Tracy Chapman.

Every day, parents and teachers ask me, ‘How do I build grit in kids? What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?’ The honest answer is, I don’t know.

People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day.

I suppose, used a different language or a different etiquette, but ultimately, these are still people that loved and breathed and lived and ate and weed and pooed just like we do now.

The only thing my husband and I have in common is that we were married on the same day.

I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use.

The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It’s quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.