Richard Petty

The guys that don’t respect that history and tradition, I don’t think they’re going to be around all that long. And those guys who don’t know the history and tradition, I think it’s upon them to learn about it pretty quick if they want to be a success.

He was at Richmond from the time I was a little boy. He was one of the originals in PR, in working with the drivers and the newspapers. He was one of the first to realize you don’t just stick up a sign and say we’re going to have a race Sunday. He went out, dug up PR and really got the job done. Any time we ran at Richmond, the place was always full.

We drove for the sheer fun of driving because there wasn’t that much money to be made.

If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’!

I quit driving, I’m not retired.

I’d rather be called King than other things I’ve been called.

Sarah Palin has been hired back by Fox News, and she only left five months ago. She has now effectively quit quitting. She can’t even commit to being uncommitted.

Somewhere around the fifth or seventh grade I figured out that I could ingratiate myself to people by making them laugh. Essentially, I was just trying to make them like me. But after a while it became part of my identity.

I don’t really see the point in washing your hair. If you don’t care if your hair’s clean or not then why would you wash it?

My husband said it was him or the cat. I miss him sometimes.

The celebrity thing… I don’t want to sound as if I absolutely don’t want it because that’s not true. If you’re in the entertainment business, you have to be honest. There’s something alluring about it…

I feel like I represent normalcy in some way.

Democracy is like a tambourine – not everyone can be trusted with it.’

Oh, nerds!

I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn’t want to go on!

This Velvet Mafia thing is just another homophobic, nasty kind of thing that jealous queens make up.

It’s just such a tangled-up issue, the way women present themselves [in comedy]-whether or not they choose to put their thumbs in their panties on the cover of Maxim and judge each other back and forth on it. It’s a complicated issue, and we didn’t go much further on saying anything other than to say, ‘Yeah, it’s a complicated issue and we’re all kind of figuring it out as we go.’

I’ve always wanted to play Maria in West Side Story. My idol is Natalie Wood, and I love the movie, so I think a modern-day twist on it would be really neat.

I keep forgetting I’m speaking in an American accent sometimes. The dangerous thing is that you end up forgetting what your real accent is after a while! It’s really strange; I’ve never done a job in an American accent before.

Every day, you try something new. So I just try to keep myself healthy physically and nutritionally.

I saw Buddy Rich playing. He was wonderful, fantastic. I would say of just sheer technique he’s the best I’ve ever seen.