We always take credit for the good and attribute the bad to fortune.

I used to think that driving, sleepless, ambitious labor was what you needed to succeed.

I gained a great appreciation for what I would call the collective achievement of the country. I began thinking of America as a much more just and humane place than I would have thought if I'd been covering the civil rights struggle.

I would love to write something that people would still read 50 or 100 years from now. That comes with growing older, I think.

Kids are always asked, What are you going to be when you grow up? I needed an answer. So instead of saying, a fireman, or a policeman, I said, a reporter.

There is melancholy in the wind and sorrow in the grass

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