I don't know what makes a good feature story. I've always assumed that if it was a story that interested or amused me, that it would have the same impact on other people.

There are a lot of people who are doing wonderful things, quietly, with no motive of greed, or hostility toward other people, or delusions of superiority.

You know, most reporters can't go back to the towns they wrote stories about. I never wrote that kind of story.

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.

The greatest thing you can do in life is to tell a young boy or girl that they're 'the very best' at something - baseball, reading, art. That gives them the wonderful feeling that they can do anything, which they can!

It was cold out there, bitter, biting, cutting, piercing, hyperborean, marmoreal cold, and there were all these Minnesotans running around outdoors, happy as lambs in the spring.

I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.