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.

Look for joy in your life; it's not always easy to find.

I suppose I was a little bit of what would be called today a nerd. I didn't have girlfriends, and really I wasn't a very social boy.

I'm not knocking the wholesale grocery business or any other, but there is a kind of romance in journalism which some people, the lucky ones, feel inside them all their lives.

It's that enthusiasm, that passion for what you're doing, that is most important.

I did stories about unexpected encounters, back roads, small towns and ordinary folk, sometimes doing something a little extraordinary.

America is a great story and there is a river on every page of it.