It takes more than driving to become an IndyCar driver. Gone are the days when drivers show up Friday morning and go home Sunday night. We're all integral to our partnerships commercially motorsports. We're as much champions in the boardroom as we are on the racetrack.

You can't have bank holding companies acting as hedge funds. You can't have them taking a million-dollar pension plan for Joe Schmo the bus driver and treat it with the same risk appetite that you treat George Soros' pocket money. It's fundamentally ridiculous.

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish but it will not replace you as the driver.

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains at the huge waves of the sea at the long courses of the rivers at the vast compass of the ocean at the circular motions of the stars and they pass by themselves without wondering.

Love is the river of life in the world.

I'll love you dear I'll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.

I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.

For 'So Cold the River ' I'm actually working on adapting the book with Scott Silver who was just nominated for an Oscar for 'The Fighter ' and who also wrote '8 Mile ' which I think is a terrific screenplay. The chance to work with Scott is a tremendous pleasure and I'm learning a lot.

In the end my pursuit of the elusive New York State driver's license became about much more than a divorced woman's learning to drive for the first time.

After you start learning all about the mechanics of piloting a riverboat you stop seeing all the pretty sunsets and you start thinking about the weather.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.'

They've got to tell us what is necessary to ensure the future health of the river system.

There are a range of associated impacts related to increasing temperatures which affect both evaporation rates and river systems which are already over stressed and these will hit farming communities and the health of crop lands.

As founder and co-chair of the upper Mississippi River Congressional task force I have long sought to preserve the river's health and historical multiple uses including as a natural waterway and a home to wildlife for the benefit of future generations of Americans.

Finally the ecological health of the Mississippi River and its economic importance to the many people that make their living or seek their recreation is based on a healthy river system.

The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.

I keep mementos from everything I've done. I've got my cab driver's license from 'Happiness.' I've got a pair of glasses and a belt buckle from playing John Lennon. I've got a pair of sunglasses from playing Andy Warhol... It's all in a box in the garage.

There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel there is only one home to the life of a tortoise there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void whose world will give us shelter?

I got all my work done to graduate in two months and then they were like I'm sorry you have to take driver's ed. I just kind of went Oh forget it.

I'm an off-road racecar driver. And I think every woman in my life has told me that's not a sensible hobby. But when I was growing even more than I wanted to be funny I wanted to be a racecar driver. That's all I thought about. I worked for a race team when I was 15 and I traveled with them.

I think there have always been funny women from Carol Burnett to Joan Rivers. When the audience sees a woman they innately know she's worked twice as hard to get there she's had to prove that she can be the leader first and then be funny on top of it. She has to emit a confidence that she's in control.

The one thing you shouldn't do is try to tell a cab driver how to get somewhere.

The reason there are two senators for each state is so that one can be the designated driver.

Fitness will be a major factor in the first race and I think that will play into the hands of drivers who have been racing recently rather than people like me who haven't raced properly for a decade. I'am not one of the favourites to start with.