Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

The problem comes when you say that danger is part of the equation. Then you don't do any more work on safety. That shouldn't happen.

I had a lot of time to think, and that is not good for your mind. And when it actually happened, it was not so much a celebration but the relief. It was an exorcism anxiety. After each race there is a procedure in which you get taken off to the podium and the TV interviews.

If I am treated fairly, I like to do things in a fair manner. That is the way I have been all my career. I haven't tried to do things in an underhanded way.

Winter testing is essential but there comes a point where you have had enough of all the rehearsals and the pretend racing. You just want to get down to the real action.

Last year was a lifetime, a whole career in one season. We went from being the dregs to winners.

The sport would not survive today if drivers were being killed at the rate they were in the 1960s and '70s. It would have been taken off the air. It is beamed into people's living rooms on Sunday afternoons, with children watching.

People ask me to describe myself, but it's a very personal thing. You don't feel comfortable.

I am very much aware that if I am getting good press at the moment I could just as easily be getting bad press. I cannot have the good and forget the bad. You have to accept it both ways.

I think at times I appear to be miserable when I am not... I might be having quite a good thought at that moment, but it seems I look miserable. I am not.

Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.

Realistically, we could aim for the top three in the constructors championship. Realistically, we could look at winning more races. Three race wins would be very satisfying.

If someone is being absolutely critical of me as a driver, what could they say? I am also critical of myself to try and keep things in perspective. That is very important.

I have always liked a challenge.

The British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do.

To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.

Because it is my second season with the team, no time has been wasted in getting to know the people I'm working with. I am aware of what the team is capable of and how the organisation works, and they are familiar with what makes me tick.

I am surprised people took so long to pick up on the fact that my contract expires at the end of this year. Eddie has to decide who he wants to drive, so there is no secret anywhere. I am not concerned. It does not sit with my objectives to be competitive.

If I am pushed I will push back, that is the way I am. I am very British. We don't like to be pushed around. When the chips are down we might have to step into grey areas.

It was five years since I'd won a race, so I was a bit bewildered.

There are a lot of factors in the life of an F1 driver which can combine to make you believe that you are somehow above normality. I think that is a mistake to start believing that. But, at the same time, it is important to be confident.

I am not allowing myself to get carried away.

I try to keep myself on an even keel by trying to be as critical of myself as I am of other people. I try to separate my performance from myself.

Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I never buy magazines, I never even buy books.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.