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 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 think I'd have done better if I had been a little more relaxed-if I had not pressed quite so hard, if I'd not lost quite so much sleep.

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.

A country so rich that it can send people to the moon still has hundreds of thousands of its citizens who can't read. That's terribly troubling to me.

I think all those people I did stories about measured their own success by the joy their work was giving them.

And still I wander, seeking compensation in unforseen encounters and unexpected sights, in sunsets, storms and passing fancies.