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 was on the high school track team, believe it or not, and played baseball, poorly but passionately.

I remember being in the public library and my jaw just aching as I looked around at all those books I wanted to read. There just wasn't time enough to read everything I wanted to read.

Most of those old settlers told it like it was, rough and rocky. They named their towns Rimrock, Rough Rock, Round Rock, and Wide Ruins, Skull Valley, Bitter Springs, Wolf Hole, Tombstone. It's a tough country. The names of Arizona towns tell you all you need to know.

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

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

...Pomeranians speak only to Poodles and Poodles speak only to God.