Danica Patrick quotes: breaking the gender barrier for female professional race car drivers, Patrick shares insight on dreams, competitiveness, hard work, hitting goals, and more.
“I don’t want to set goals at any certain level, I just want to keep going and see how far I can go.”
“Take those chances and you can achieve greatness, whereas if you go conservative, you’ll never know. I truly believe what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Even if you fail, learning and moving on is sometimes the best thing.”
“Give yourself permission to shoot for something that seems totally beyond your grasp. You may be surprised at your capabilities.”
“If you want to be the best in your industry you need to have a relentless dedication to your job.”
“You have to keep thinking, ‘I can be better.'”
“Sometimes it takes looking at the past to really be able to move forward and learn from it.”
“When you are not missing something, longing for something, you don’t really think about it that much. It’s like that girlfriend you don’t want to have anymore. You don’t think about her anymore. Or ex-husband. You just don’t.”
“I would tell kids not to be like me, but to try and be better than me. Because I always wanted to be better than everyone I was around. That’s what drove me. I wanted to be better than my role models. I’m super competitive.”
“I would also tell kids to make sure that they love whatever they end up doing in life. To really be good at something and excel you have to love it and have to be dedicated to it. Not every day is great and not every day is easy, but you do it because you love it.”
“I never do anything out of my comfort zone.”
“We don’t do things we aren’t good at by nature. I wouldn’t play basketball because I’m only 5′ 1″. Find what you enjoy, whether it’s racing, flying a helicopter, being a doctor, or stitching clothes together. Once you’ve done that, you have the passion you need.”
“Maybe back in the day you didn’t need to be the greatest looking to be on TV and you didn’t need to speak the best, but in this day and age, I think you need to be the total package. You need to look the part for your sponsors, you need to be able to speak the part for the media and to big CEOs.”
“I think you can be happy and still be competitive. A good lesson for everybody is to think a bit before you speak and represent who you really are instead of the brash, emotional you.”
“I almost take it as a compliment that people will see me, and say things and be angry.”
“Fame can be annoying, but there are perks too.”
“I was very against pink and purple when I was young, because they were girls’ colors. But that was only because I didn’t want people to write me off for what I can do. When I got into my 20s, I decided that was stupid.”
“I’ve been taught from a young age to want to be the best driver. It was about being the best driver and not the best girl.”
“I just go where my heart tells me, where my gut tells me to go, where I’m enjoying my life the most, where I feel like I can have the most success. I’ve truly enjoyed my experience in NASCAR, to the point that I want to do it full time.”
“If there’s one great thing I think that’s happened over the years, it’s that women are being accepted into a man’s world in all different areas, whether it’s flying an airplane or driving a race car.”
“I know what it takes to be fast and I feel like every year I learn valuable lessons about how to be better the next time.”
“When pressure’s on and when the spotlight’s on, I feel like it ultimately ends up becoming some of my better moments.”
“I don’t feel like there’s anything that I need to do for anybody else. I want to win bad enough for myself anyway, that nothing anybody can say can make me want to win any more.”
“I can handle it. I’m fine with it. It would be bad if I felt the pressure to perform along with it. But I promise you, I want to do well for myself.”
“It looks like I have a thing for dangerous sports, don’t I?”
“I want to win at everything. I usually don’t like things that I’m not good at, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to win at them.”
“I believe it reflects what’s happening in all levels of our society. As these amazing success stories are detailed in the media, it will have an impact by helping create even greater opportunities for the next generation.”
“I’m a big believer in everybody being themselves. If not doing a swimsuit calendar is yourself, that’s great. But if doing a swimsuit calendar is yourself, then you should be able to do it. What I do outside the car adds to who I am and expresses a different side of me.”
“There are people all over the place. Kids and adults. Men and women. It’s been really cool. Having this whole role model thing happen is definitely something that happened a lot quicker than what I thought. It’s really easy because it’s not trying. I’m not, like, trying to be a role model. I haven’t tried to go out of my way to inspire people. When you’re real and you’re authentic and you try to give honest answers all the time, then it’s easy.”
“The last time I was pulled over was in 2005. I was going 55 in a 35 mile per hour zone – which I don’t understand because you can barely even idle at 35 miles per hour. Anyway, I was ordered to go to traffic school. It was an 8-hour class and really painful.”
“In the Lamborghini I have to avoid certain roads because of pot holes, and there’s nowhere to put my drink, no cup holder. And I’m not going to lie, it looks pretentious. I used to think it was cool to, like, drive it to dinner. Now? Like I really need to be looked at any more.”
“It’s just my story… and the lessons that I learned along the way and that it wasn’t all a peachy keen, wonderful life. It was hard, and probably, when I look back on it, it’s harder looking back than in the moment.”
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