Mother set impossibly high standards for us, creating tremendous pressures and undermining our ability to accomplish whatever modest aims we may have set for ourselves.

The image of me as someone who likes or can deal with a fight is wrong. Some people enjoy competition and dustups, and I wish I did, but I don't. But once you have started down a path, then I think you have to move forward. You can't give up.

When it comes to Washington, most people tend to think first of politics. But Washington is also a geographic and physical place. It is, for instance, one of the few cities of the world where you can talk endlessly about trees.

For more than eight decades, Washington has been my hometown. My whole orientation is toward this place.

So I was shampooing at 14. But I've always thought that had I the opportunity for an education, I would have been an architect. There's no question about it.

I can't imagine my life without books. My father was an electrical engineer, and my mother was a public school teacher. Books were an integral part of my childhood.

I enjoyed physical education and lunch time. The social aspect of school was great, but as soon as I left school, I wanted to get out there and race. I couldn't sit still for long.

The study titled 'Impact of Immigration on Wages, by Education Level, 1994-2007' found that increased immigration had an effect of lowering wages for earlier immigrants by an average of 4.6 percent. Running counter to popular perception is the finding that for native-born Americans, wages actually increased by 0.6 percent.