I've always like roadracing, but you know how it is in a family when you're young. They thought it was a little too dangerous so I started with Trials riding.

In Malaysia where the front end pushes so much, extra engine braking is really going to help you.

The rider and the team need to understand one another and work in the same direction. Then the rider's happy, and only then will the rider be able to give 100%.

I'm proud of my triumphs. I've dreamed of being world champion, I've had some difficult times and they've made me value the good times.

What the other teams do is something that I can never control, so I just keep focussed on my direction.

We've done all the work that HRC wanted on the twin and the project has been completed. We were consistently up there with the top guys and that is what HRC wanted to prove.

It's quite easy to start Trials riding. You just need a bike and you're set.

I've decided to retire from top class racing. It has been an incredible experience and has provided with me some unforgettable moments.

I've enjoyed winning races in both 500cc and MotoGP and enjoyed leading the world championship and contesting it right up until the end.

So while I was studying, I rode my Trials bike, then I moved to roadracing.

With roadracing, it takes a lot more time and money.

Art fuels the fire inside me.

It's not all that important that you be able to originate brilliant ideas... The more important talent is to be able to recognize good ideas from other people.

Every language has influences and is an influence.

Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.

Mission + tools. That’s really what it takes to have focus...you fail at focus because whatever you are trying to focus on isn’t important enough to you.

Only when women rebel against patriarchal standards does female muscle become more accepted.

There aren't any liberals left in New York. They've all been mugged by now.

We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance.

Prog rock, with a little good taste, is ok. I tried to bring some of it into this century, I guess.

This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.