I made friends with a lot of those who could have criticized me in print and who didn't, who praised me instead.

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.

I much preferred the peaceful life on the road, where I didn't have to ask embarrassing questions and do all the things real reporters have to do.

Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.

I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a reporter. I don't know where I got the idea that it was a romantic calling.

I don't think I had a reputation as a hard worker, but inside I was always being eaten up by the pressures.

For a while there, I was a stringer. The expression comes from the old habit of stringing together the column inches that you had written. They'd measure it and pay you 10 cents an inch for your printed copy.